Hastur Lord

Then Rinaldo’s face brightened. “I cannot, I will notabandon her!”

“My lord . . .”

“Do not fear, I will not ask anything of you that is contrary to your honor.” Rinaldo inflected the word to sound like an insult. “The moment must be right . . . You will speak to no one about this. No one.”

“Su serva, vai dom.”Danilo bowed, a shade lower than necessary. Besides, who would he tell that the Head of Hastur and the wife of the Terran Federation Legate were caught up in a shared religious frenzy? Who would believe him?

Winter settled its grip on the city. Each day seemed shorter, bleaker and darker, as if the season hurried to its own death. The storms of autumn gave way to unrelenting cold. Temperatures plummeted, and layers of compacted snow blanketed streets and roof tops. A blizzard, the strongest anyone could recall, blew down from the Hellers. It swept through the Venza Hills to descend upon the city. Streets became impassable, even though crews of men struggled to clear the snow.

The walls of Comyn Castle kept out the worst gales, but the rest of Thendara was not so fortunate. Traffic through the city gates dwindled to a few desperate travelers. Those who reached Thendara brought reports of attacks on human habitations by starving wolves, human and animal, throughout the Kilghard Hills. Giant carnivorous banshees stalked the Hellers passes, venturing down from their usual territories in search of prey. In the city, many muttered that it was the worst winter in memory.

Marriage had not changed Rinaldo’s life in any way Danilo could detect. Occasionally, Rinaldo dined with his wife, but more often with Javanne and Gabriel. Javanne looked uneasy, as if she feared Danilo would think her a traitor to Regis by sharing a meal with his usurper. She was in an awkward position as Rinaldo’s sister and in her role as Castle chatelaine as well as the wife of the Guards Commander, who served at the pleasure of the Hastur Lord. As far as Danilo knew, Rinaldo had never spoken with Regis after the obligatory visit to admire the baby.

Rinaldo seemed immune to the weather. The monks at St. Valentine’s were said to be impervious to the cold, able to sleep on the glacial ice in their sandals and robes. Whether this was myth or a discipline of bodily control, Danilo did not know. Certainly, the monks did not mind the freezing temperatures as the novices and students did.

On all but the bitterest days, Rinaldo went into the city, wearing layers of fur and wool and stout lined boots. He did not insist that Danilo accompany him, but Danilo took pity on the poor Guardsman who would otherwise have had that duty and braved the icy streets himself.

Together they made a circuit of the new cristoforoshrines. Now that Rinaldo controlled the Hastur assets, he financed soup kitchens as an act of charity. Exultantly, he pointed out to Danilo how attendance at services had increased. Danilo privately thought these poor wretches were so desperate, they would sit through sermons from Zandru himself for a hot meal.

The days ran on, each darker than the one before, until Midwinter Night drew near. This time was also a great cristoforoholiday—the birth-date, they said, of the Bearer of Burdens.

Rinaldo would not permit any of the usual Midwinter celebrations, dismissing them as heretical. Instead, he invited Regis and Linnea as well as Javanne and Gabriel to a late-evening family party. The largest of the parlors had been decorated with strings of dried berries representing the droplets of blood shed by the holy saints, rather than the usual garlands of fir boughs. A generous fire warmed the air, and banks of beeswax candles gave off a gentle, honey-sweet perfume.

Regis arrived early to participate in the customary giving of gifts to the servants. At first glimpse, a fever raced through Danilo. All the things he wanted to say boiled over the cauldron of his mind so that for a moment, he could not even breathe. For a heart-stopping moment, Regis met his gaze.

Rinaldo was watching both of them intently, waiting like a hunter for the slightest lapse. Desperate to do nothing that might betray the depths of his emotions, Danilo threw all his concentration into barricading his mind. Regis answered him with an expression of unconcerned calm.

After the servants went off to their own holiday dinner, the rest of the family came in. Mikhail was not present, having remained at Ardais with Kennard-Dyan. Linnea entered a few minutes later, accompanied by one of the young Castamir ladies. As she and Danilo greeted one another, their eyes met in recognition. A heat rose from her skin, a scent more sensed than felt; she had been nursing little Danilo.

Javanne greeted everyone graciously. Thinner than usual, she wore a holiday gown elegant with lace and silver- thread embroidery but no jewels, as if she had been unable to determine the exact degree of formality of the occasion. Gabriel looked proper and formal in his uniform, with never a word or gesture out of place.

He’s angry . . . or afraid.Danilo had known Gabriel since his days as a cadet and could not imagine what would cause fear in the older man. Caution, certainly, for Gabriel’s position as brother-in-law to Regis must make his every action suspect.

Servants brought in bowls of mulled berry wine and platters of little seed-cakes that, if not strictly traditional, created an atmosphere of festivity. Rinaldo, playing the generous host, made sure everyone had a full goblet.

“It is time for your gift, my brother.” Rinaldo lifted his goblet to Regis. Danilo noticed the hectic, almost feverish light in Rinaldo’s eyes.

“I have brought nothing for you,” Regis said, “save for my wishes for a peaceful season.”

A note in his voice tore at Danilo’s heart, a cold whisper slicing through the bright jollity. Danilo had none of the Aldaran Gift of precognition, but he sensed that whatever happened next would change the world forever.

Rinaldo smiled, saying, “Do not distress yourself. I am so happy tonight that nothing can displease me.”

The door swung open, and Bettany entered with two ladies in attendance. Her gown, an edifice of brocade and satin, rustled as she moved. A small fortune in Ardcarran rubies set in copper filigree lay upon her exposed bosom and dangled from her ears.

To Danilo’s surprise, one of the attendants was Tiphani Lawton. He did not recognize her at first glance, for she wore the long belted tunic over full skirts of an ordinary Darkovan woman. Her hair was caught back in a coil on her neck and covered with a demure coif. But she did not comport herself as a Darkovan woman. Her gaze was bold and direct, and her eyes glowed with brittle fire.

Danilo did not know how to react, whether he should acknowledge her presence. If Rinaldo had managed to spirit her away from Terran Headquarters, Danilo did not want to consider the consequences.

At Rinaldo’s gesture, Bettany came to stand beside him. Her color deepened as the other guests bowed to her. Certainly, there was an unwonted freshness to her skin, a new softness to her chin and a fullness to her partly bared breasts.

“Tell them our news, my dearest,” Rinaldo said.

She accepted a goblet from a servant and lifted it. “Drink a toast, my lords and ladies, to the son of my lord Rinaldo, which I shall bear come Midsummer’s Eve.”

For a fraction of a heartbeat, stunned silence reigned. Danilo wondered how it was possible, or how anyone but a laran-Gifted healer could determine that Bettany carried a boy child. He could not even begin to consider the political implications of Rinaldo producing an heir. Then Linnea, and a moment later Javanne, recollected themselves enough to utter feminine expressions of joy. Gabriel, moving swiftly to cover the lapse, bowed to Bettany and wished her and her child all happiness.

Regis, his expression unreadable, bowed first to Bettany, as a new mother-to-be taking her place of honor, and then to his brother. “Please accept my most sincere congratulations.”

Everyone applauded Bettany and drank several more toasts to her and her unborn child. Then the party split into two groups, the women sitting together, talking about pregnancy and baby clothes, while the men remained standing.

“I know what you are all thinking,” Rinaldo said, finishing his goblet and holding it out for a servant to refill. “None of you believed that I—an emmasca—could father a child. Admit it, you all believed me incapable.”

Gabriel clamped his jaw shut. Regis, meeting his brother’s challenging stare, said, “It does happen upon rare occasions, I suppose. Our chieriancestry manifests in the laranof some and the six-fingered hands of others. It is said to be especially strong in those who are born as you were, emmasca. But the chieriare not infertile. They do produce offspring, although very few.”

Regis paused, his eyes softening, and Danilo sensed in him one of the few luminous memories from the days of the World Wreckers. A chieri, one of the fabled “Children of Light” of the ancient forests, had come forward to help the beleaguered planet.

Danilo closed his eyes, remembering the tall, slender creature, at times like a wild, heartbreakingly beautiful girl, then unquestionably masculine. Keral had given birth to a child, conceived on the same night as Kierestelli and so many others, before returning to the Yellow Forest and the remnants of the chierirace. Did Keral still dance under the four moons in yearning, in grief, in ecstasy? And the child, the hope of a fading people, did that child flourish?

Will any of us ever see them again?

“Nothing is impossible to him who puts his faith in the Divine,” Rinaldo said. His expression of triumph left Danilo profoundly uneasy.

At least motherhood might bring Bettany a measure of fulfillment. Most well-born girls hoped for nothing more than a comfortable home, a husband and children. Linnea and her sister leroniwere the exception rather than the rule.

When Bettany moved apart from the other women, Danilo seized the opportunity to extend his felicitation. She responded with a sniff. “My happiness will come from my sons.”

After a fractional, astonished moment, Danilo hastened to say, “I hope they will grow to be honorable men.”

“They will be powerful and rich! All the world will kneel in fealty to them! Everyone will know that Igave them life!”

She paused, chest heaving. Perhaps she was aware that she could easily be overheard. Linnea and Javanne had averted their faces, but Tiphani was staring openly. Bettany turned her back on the off-world woman.

“Everyone said I was worthless. Oh, not when I could hear them, but I knew. I heard them whispering in my dreams. Now they will see—I will show them all! Even you with your kindness—” and here, Danilo remembered her angry words when he had suggested she seek out Linnea as a companion and guide. Bettany finished with, “ Youwon’t ever have sons to bow down before mine!”

Danilo did not know which was more appalling, her spiteful delusions or the vision of all Darkover under the rule of her offspring. In such a world, what would become of Mikhail? Of little Dani?

As far as he knew, Danilo had no trace of the Aldaran Gift of precognition, so he could reassure himself that his fears were imaginings born of his own recent captivity and unsettled times, nothing more.

“Oh!” Bettany clapped her hands over her mouth. Her cheeks reddened, and her eyes brimmed with tears. “I didn’t mean that! It just popped out! I never know what I’m going to say or feel from one moment to the next!”

“Little one, I did not take it personally. You have not offended me.” The only offense came from those who thrust her, ill in mind and unprepared, into such a marriage, but he could not say so to her face.

She lowered her hands. Her lower lip, full and soft as a child’s, quivered. She summoned a tentative smile. “There—I am better when I am with you. I think the time on the trail with you and MestraDarilyn and the others was the most fun I have ever had. Now I have no one except those silly maids, and they never tell me anything important. Youalways speak plainly and . . . you’re nice to me.” With a flutter of her eyelashes, she placed one hand on his arm.

Danilo’s chest tightened. By all that was holy, had the girl fallen in love with him? He knew he was reckoned handsome and could have had his pick of women—and more than a few men, too—had his heart not been so focused on Regis. For a hopeful moment, he decided he was mistaken, that she showed him no more favor than was proper to her husband’s paxman. Then he saw the sidelong glance and rise of her breasts, felt the caress of her fingers through the fabric of his sleeve, inhaled her perfume, a scent far too provocative for a young bride.

Did she have any idea what she was doing or how many others she placed at risk? She was the wife of the most powerful man on Darkover, and she carried his child, whereas Danilo’s freedom and, most likely, his life hung from the slender thread of her husband’s good will.

He remembered riding beside Bettany on the trail, her face as he handed her the cup of jacoat the inn . . . himself speaking words of encouragement . . . dancing with her at the nuptial ball . . .

Now she was looking up at him with unseemly boldness—no, not boldness. Pleading.

“You will still be my friend, won’t you? You’ll come and visit me often?”

He removed her hand from his arm and led her back to the other women. “Lady,” he said with as much gentleness as he could summon, “that would not be wise for either of us. If you have need of a friend—”

She halted. “You mean Lady Linnea! Why are you always trying to pawn her off on me when it is youI want?”

“Because she can help you, truly help you, and I cannot.”

“Cannot? Or will not?”

Danilo gave Bettany a short bow. He raised his voice so that everyone could hear him as he wished her a healthy child. Bettany looked as if she would stamp her foot. He returned to the other men, and when he glanced back, she had rejoined the women. Linnea, without any sign of having overheard, complimented Bettany on her gown.

Tiphani left the group of women without a backward glance, deserting the lady she purported to attend. Regis, with his usual impeccable grace, bowed to her as to the Legate’s wife.

“ DomnaLawton, I did not anticipate the pleasure of meeting you here. May all the joys of the season be yours.”

“Lawton?” She tossed her head, sending the edges of her coif fluttering. “I have left that life behind me. I have a new name, one given to me by the Power we all must answer to. I am no longer Tiphani but Luminosa. Through me flows the Divine Light. I have no need for earthly attachments.”

Only,Danilo thought wryly, for the earthly protection of Rinaldo.But was he her creature, or she his?

“. . . only fitting that my unborn son should be attended by the one who foresaw his conception . . .” Rinaldo was saying.

All eyes, for the women had halted in their conversation and now listened openly, turned to Tiphani.

“From the moment of the wedding, the sacred union of masculine and feminine essences,” Tiphani said, “I sensed an imminence. You all must have felt the Presence among us! That very night, as I was deep in prayer, I was granted a vision. Light—oh, sweet Divine Light!—filled me. It raptured me beyond any earthly bliss. In the midst of my transport, I saw the Holy Seed flow through me into the womb of the new bride. I was given the knowledge that not only would the handmaiden of my lord Rinaldo be fruitful, but she would carry his firstborn son.”

She rushed on, each glowing phrase building upon the one before. Danilo wanted to roll his eyes. He had been taught, as a child of a devout cristoforofamily, to believe in the saints, but Tiphani Lawton was not among them. Whatever had happened to her sprang from her own unstable mind.

For an instant, Danilo wondered whether the pregnancy was genuine or a concoction of wishful thinking. Such things were possible when weak minds and strong emotions came together. Certainly, the prospect of a legitimate heir would consolidate Rinaldo’s power among the Comyn. But how could anyone be sure? Rinaldo was as head-blind as any man Danilo had ever met. Silently, Danilo blessed his choice of Renunciate escorts, for no man could now say he himself had anything to do with her child. The two of them had never been alone for even five minutes.

Unless . . .

Unless she had already been pregnant when he brought her from Serrais. Horrified, he put the thought from his mind.

Bettany jumped to her feet, chattering about her miraculous motherhood. With quiet dignity, Linnea took her aside.

“You must not excite yourself overly, chiya.A calm manner and sweet words are beneficial to a woman in your condition. Come and sit beside me.”

“You must not address me in such a fashion,” Bettany said coldly. “I am Lady Hastur and mother to the future Hastur Lord.”

Javanne gasped at this blatant rudeness to a Comynara and former Keeper.

“Your rank is indeed higher than mine, vai domna,” Linnea replied with the easy confidence of one who need never bow to anyone. “But I have somewhat more experience in matters of childbearing, have I not?”

“That is all very well, but when my son is born, yourson will have to do whatever he says.”

“I hope our sons will be true and loyal kinsmen,” Linnea said. “Let us not argue. If we wish our children to be friends, we must set an example. I have no interest in usurping your precedence, only in your happiness and welfare. I wish to be of help to you.”

Tiphani had fallen silent. The men had turned to listen, Rinaldo with a fleeting, black expression, Regis with outright pride, Gabriel with barely disguised relief. Javanne attempted to put a soothing arm around Bettany’s shoulders, but Bettany shrugged her off.

“I myself will attend the blessed mother,” Tiphani intoned. “We have no need of primitive midwifery or native superstitions. Our guide shall be the Holy Seed itself. Let us retire to pray.”

With Bettany at her heels, she swept from the room. An awkward pause followed until Linnea and Javanne joined the men. Little of consequence was said, and the party broke up shortly. Danilo wished beyond words that he were free to leave with Regis and Linnea.

BOOK IV: Regis

26

Late morning sun poured through the windows of the townhouse parlor. After a month of almost continuous snowstorms, the skies had finally cleared. How long the respite would last, no one knew. In the streets, people seized the opportunity to dig out passageways through snow piled higher than a man’s head.

Regis, sitting beside the hearth, roused from his musings. The brightness of the day, coupled with the warmth of the parlor, had lulled him halfway into dreaming. On the divan opposite him, Linnea had just rocked Dani to sleep.

Much to her husband’s surprise, Linnea had insisted on a separate bedroom down the corridor from his and adjacent to Kierstelli’s. Regis thought at first that she wanted to preserve a measure of her former independence. He soon realized the benefits of separating the space in which she devoted herself to her children from the life they shared as a newly married couple. He gave up little of his own customs and preferences, but instead gained from the addition of hers. Each time she came to his bed, she brought a sense of new delight.

Linnea’s shawl of soft ivory wool had slipped away, revealing the baby’s mouth still pressed to her breast. The sun burnished her hair to a halo of rose-gold. At her feet, Kierstelli sat cross-legged, picking out a melody on the child-sized ryllRegis had given her as a Midwinter gift. Sensing his awareness, she looked up and met his gaze without pausing in her music.

A pang brushed his heart. Here he was, warm and comfortable, never hungry, for the cellars and larder were always well supplied. He had at last been freed of the responsibility he had never wanted. He had a wife he loved and respected. More than that, he had a family he had never dreamed possible. To his son, he would be the father he had never known. And yet . . .

And yet, his thoughts kept returning to those who still suffered. The poor, who had little food and no way to buy any, even if they could afford it. The country folk, even colder and hungrier, eating their seed crop from desperation.

And Danilo . . .Always his thoughts came back to Danilo, like an unhealed wound in his heart.

Surely, Rinaldo would value Danilo, would treat him fairly if not kindly. The pain of separation might never pass, but Danilo would be safe and well.

But not with me.

The threat posed by the Federation had receded but was far from resolved. The situation was unstable, dependent on Rinaldo’s whim. Since the Midwinter announcement of Bettany’s pregnancy, Rinaldo had become increasingly unpredictable, effusive one moment and darkly suspicious the next. Tiphani Lawton now wielded far more persuasive power than Valdir ever had. Valdir and his supporters had not given up their ambitions.

As for poor Bettany, she vacillated from remote and arrogant to childishly needy. In a combination of those moods, she had demanded that Linnea attend her as lady-in-waiting. Regis could not imagine a more perilous situation.

Merilys, who had come to serve Regis and Linnea after their marriage, slipped into the room. She took the sleeping baby into her arms, moving gently so as not to waken him. Regis wondered how she knew when to come, and he decided this knowledge was yet another women’s mystery.

When the door closed behind Merilys and the baby, Linnea rearranged the top of her gown, arched her back, and stretched. She looked very young, her movements unselfconscious in their grace, but her expression was somber.

“Regis, with this fine weather, the city will soon be abustle. I will no longer be able to blame being snowed in for not answering Bettany’s summons. I fear any further delay will be taken as discourteous at best.”

Regis found that his chair had suddenly become too comfortable. He pushed himself to his feet and strode to the window. Over the wall of the garden, he glimpsed people on the street. A rider in the short cloak of a City Guardsman guided his mount between the pedestrians. This district, with its wealthy mansions, was the first to be cleared of snow.

“Then we shall find another reason,” he said. “It is an insult to expect you to play nursemaid.”

“She has no kinswoman to attend her and is most likely as confused and frightened as any woman pregnant for the first time.”

Regis suppressed a smile. “That is compassionate, but it changes nothing.”

She came to stand beside him. He felt her ambivalence, her fierce desire to remain with her own baby, to protect both her children.

“What is it, preciosa?” he asked. “What troubles you?”

“I cannot set aside the feeling that this poor child needs me. Something is wrong. When I last saw her, at Midwinter, I couldn’t monitor her, nor would it have been ethical to do so without her leave. I offered, telling her that Comyn women have done so through the ages. It poses no danger to mother or babe. She grew angry, as if I had insulted her. Should she ask me now, I would not refuse—but I fear the worst.”

“And that is?”

She looked up, her gray eyes troubled. “I don’t know.”

“Do you think she truly wants your help or only to boast that the woman who might have been lady to the Hastur Lord, an Arilinn-trained Keeper, now dances attendance on her?”

From her expression, she thought the same. Carefully, he picked his way through the words so as not to reveal the depth of his fears. “For the sake of our children, I ask you to keep yourself apart from the court and its perils.”

It was not so long ago that anyone I loved became a target for kidnapping and threat of worse. The moment Linnea passes through the Castle gates, she becomes vulnerable . . .He could not bear the thought of her in the clutches of his enemies.

But who, he wondered, were his enemies now? Valdir and the other Ridenow? Tiphani Lawton? Or Rinaldo himself?

She shook her head. “What about the risks of defiance? We do not know if this is a passing whim of hers or a test of loyalty. I do not want to move to Comyn Castle, but I would not put you or anyone we care for at risk. Danilo is still in Rinaldo’s custody, no matter what it’s called.”

“That’s all the more reason for you to stay here. Bettany cannot command you. She may be Lady Hastur, but she is not queen. I will speak with my brother. If this is his wish rather than hers, if he wants to be sure of me, then I will find another way of demonstrating my compliance.”

Linnea arched one eyebrow. You have never beencompliant.

Regis wanted to laugh and scowl at the same time. True, if old Danvan Hastur, with all his manipulative wiles and force of personality, had not been able to bend Regis to his wishes, then a monk dressed in Hastur robes had little chance. And yet . . . Grandfather could not force me to marry, and here I am.

“I do not wish to raise a rebellion against Rinaldo,” Regis said, trying to keep his voice light. “If anything, I owe him a brother’s love and all the help he will accept. He may have odd ideas, having been raised by Nevarsin monks, but he is not unintelligent. He is perceptive and idealistic. With time and good advice, he will come around.”

“You trust him more than I do.” She fell silent for a moment. “Still, you are right in one thing. Your brother means to do right. If you can persuade him that I am unsuitable as a waiting-woman, that would be the best solution to this problem.”

“Then I will try.”

It still seemed odd to be out in the city without Danilo beside him. Regis felt half-dressed, as if he had left home without his boots. He did what he could to appear inconspicuous. Muffled in a cloak of muted green, his distinctive white hair covered by the hood, he hardly resembled the legendary Regis Hastur. He rode, rather than walked as he once might have, not his Armida-bred mare but a stout gelding, big enough to shoulder its way through a crowd. The dun was shaggy with winter coat, each sturdy foot covered with feathering. It stepped out eagerly, pleased to be free of the stable on such a fine day.

Regis followed the maze of cleared streets, angling toward the Castle. Compacted snow rose like walls to either side, broken at intervals by doors. A handful of children dressed in layers of rags scampered laughing across the top layers, hurling snowballs at one another.

A clearing marked a major intersection where a scattering of vendors had set up their stalls. There was no produce, only hot jacoand fried bread twists. An old woman sold knitted mittens from a basket. She offered a pair to Regis. Gravely, he inspected the tiny, even stitches, the soft chervinewool. The old woman’s expression, dignity mixed with hunger, touched him. Blessing the foresight that had provided him with a purse, he fished out a silver coin. It was more than the mittens were worth, but not so much as to offend her pride.

A little way farther, Regis heard men’s voices, rising and falling in rhythmic chant. He drew the gelding to a halt. A strange procession approached. At first, Regis thought it a collection of monks from St. Valentine’s. Those in the vanguard wore long brown robes belted with rope, but none were tonsured. The rest, a dozen or so, carried standards with crudely painted cristoforosymbols, jingled bells, or pounded on hand drums. They sang,

“Lord of Worlds,

Remove our sin.

Lord of Worlds,

The Light Within.”

Regis had heard the chant every morning and every evening of his years at St. Valentine’s. At the time, he had thought it tedious and simple-minded. Now, the fervor and insistent rhythm troubled him. The singers seemed to be not so much penitent as demanding. Reluctant to encounter them more closely, Regis loosened the reins and touched the horse with his heels.

A Castle Guardsman took the horse at the gate. A second escorted Regis to the Hastur apartments and his grandfather’s—now Rinaldo’s—study. The room seemed little changed since Regis himself had occupied it.

Rinaldo sat behind the massive desk. Tiphani Lawton stood beside him, in the place where Danilo should be. She wore a robe somewhat like a monk’s, not of coarse brown homespun but stripes of silky white, red, and black.

Where’s Danilo? By all the Seven Frozen Hells—

The next instant, Rinaldo caught Regis up in a brother’s embrace. Quelling his sudden alarm, Regis tried to return the greeting as heartily as it was given.

Rinaldo released Regis, clapping him on both shoulders. “It’s good to see you! This weather has kept us apart, you in your snug little den halfway across the city and me immured in this drafty old Castle.”

“I hope I find you in good health. And you, MestraLawton.” Regis bowed to Tiphani.

She lifted her chin. Her features had altered, pared to starkness but still beautiful, her hair cut short and slicked to her skull.

“I no longer bear that tainted name,” she announced. “I now answer to the name granted to me by the Most Holy— Luminosa! All glory be to God.”

“All glory be to God,” Rinaldo repeated.

Regis wondered what the Terran Legate had to say about his wife’s psychiatric condition now. Better not to open that subject,he thought as he took a seat at Rinaldo’s invitation. Before the conversation could resume, however, there came a tap at the door.

“Come,” Rinaldo called, and Danilo entered.

With an effort, Regis kept his expression calm, as if Danilo meant no more to him than a passing acquaintance. His heart turned into a falcon caged within his chest, beating frantic wings as it tore at its prison. He longed to open his mind to his bredhyu. Rinaldo was head-blind and would never notice . . . but Tiphani might. From their earliest meeting, Regis had sensed her psychic sensitivity, perhaps laran.

Be still. Say nothing. Do nothing to risk him.

Danilo moved across the room, graceful as always, whole of body and unharmed. He went to the desk and placed a packet of papers before Rinaldo.

Danilo bowed first to Rinaldo, then to Tiphani Lawton—Regis could not think of her as anything else, certainly not that pompous name—and then, without the slightest hesitation, to Regis himself.

Regis relaxed minutely. Danilo’s silence had been more eloquent than any greeting. If they had indeed grown apart, if all feeling between them had died, a few meaningless words would have come easily.

Paper crinkled as Rinaldo folded the sheets and set them aside. He turned back to Regis with another smile. “What is the news from the other side of town? How does your wife and your new son? I expect he is trotting about the house by now.”

Regis smiled. “Not for some months yet, I think. Babies grow more slowly than that. He still needs his mother’s tender care. For his sake, she should remain close by him, at home.”

“Of course! I am glad to hear she is such a devoted mother, and you such a solicitous husband and father. You see, my brother, the blessings that come with obedience to Divine Law?”

“I am indeed content in my marriage,” Regis said, keeping his eyes upon his brother and not on Danilo.

Confusion flickered across Rinaldo’s features. “I do not see why the issue of a mother leaving her own young children should arise—”

“The note,” Tiphani said, placing one hand on Rinaldo’s shoulder.

“I thought Lady Bettany had sent an apology.” Rinaldo scowled. “I toldher!”

“Do not think harshly of your poor wife.” Tiphani’s voice turned honey-sweet. “Pregnancy can addle the wits of any woman.”

Pregnancy had not made Linnea any less rational. Regis listened politely as Rinaldo explained that, of course, Bettany had not thought of the implications of her invitation.

“In any event, it is not necessary. Lady Hastur is well tended here in the Castle. She wants for nothing, certainly not feminine companionship.” Rinaldo glanced at Tiphani.

Regis felt impelled to repeat Linnea’s offer, that should Bettany desire laranmonitoring of her pregnancy, Linnea would be at her service. He did not add that it was an extraordinary privilege to have such care from a Keeper.

Tiphani set her lips in a tight line. Rinaldo’s expression, which had been open and earnest, darkened. “With all respect to your lady wife, who seems a model of womanly virtue,” he said, “it would not be proper for one who once practiced sorcerous arts to attend my own wife. I cannot allow the innocent souls of both mother and unborn child to be exposed to such an influence, even if unintended.”

“ Laranis not magic,” Regis said, caught unawares by the accusation. “We Comyn are not witches. Our Gifts may seem supernatural, but they can be understood rationally and used honorably.”

“So you have been misled to believe,” Rinaldo said. “I cannot fault you, although you must have learned otherwise from the good brothers at Nevarsin.”

Regis recalled that so deep was the cristoforos’animosity to mental powers that every stone of the monastery had been laid by human hands, without the assistance of laran. “I intended no offense. No harm would come to Lady Hastur in my wife’s care.”

“I do not doubt DomnaLinnea’s good intentions, but even the strongest mind can be seduced by temptation.”

The atmosphere had chilled during the discussion. Tiphani broke the tension, turning to Regis. “We need not discompose your household, Lord Regis. Lady Hastur is in the best hands imaginable, for when the spirit is under Divine guidance, no ill can come to the body. Daily I receive instruction as to her care. No malign influence is permitted to approach her, only those individuals sanctified by the One True God. All will be well, I assure you.”

Ice brushed the back of his neck as Regis remembered her tear-streaked face and passionate words: “I took the filthy thing away from Felix 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—”

Her ignorance had almost killed her own child. Was she now making some bizarre atonement . . . or convincing herself that she was fulfilling a holy mission?

Rinaldo nodded beatifically. Regis could not think what to say. He had faced more challenging situations than he could count, but this declaration left him speechless.

“Surely,” Danilo said to Tiphani, moving smoothly into the pause, “your husband can have no objection to your being of such service.”

Tiphani shot him a look of unadulterated spite.

So that’s where the lines of alliance were drawn. Be careful, Danilo. Few people are more dangerous than those who believe God speaks through them.

“Have no fear,” Rinaldo said as he patted Tiphani’s arm. “I have given you my protection. No one will force you to return against your will.”

She shook off his touch. “It’s not so simple.”

“No, indeed,” Regis broke in, “for you are still a Federation citizen, Mestra. . . Luminosa, and your husband is the Legate. My brother may be Lord Hastur, but he does not speak for the other Domains. This Castle is the joint property of all the Comyn, controlled by no single house.”

It was a clumsy move, speaking to Tiphani but really directing his remarks at Rinaldo: “What do you think you’re doing, harboring a runaway Terran against the wishes of her family? Are you trying to provoke a conflict with the Federation?”

Rinaldo glared at Regis as if confronting a delinquent student. “You go too far, my brother! How dare you speak so disrespectfully to me, your elder and Head of your Domain?”

“You asked for my counsel once,” Regis replied. “Is it disrespectful to speak a truth that might—” He paused, meaning to say, “prevent a catastrophic decision?”but, deciding better, finished, “—be put to good use?”

“ DomValdir is always lecturing me on the importance of diplomatic cooperation. I am only one Domain among many . . .” Rinaldo went on, his voice becoming more thoughtful. “There is nothing to stop others from taking independent action, siding against me with Lawton and the Federation. As for the Telepath Council, they are nothing more than a band of commoners infected by laranwitchery! No, no, what I need—what all of Darkover needs—is a strong leader to speak for everyone.”

“That is not as easy as it sounds,” Regis commented, “even with loyal supporters and sound advice.” He meant Danilo’s service and his own counsel, but Tiphani took it as an oblique compliment and preened. “As for your situation, MestraLuminosa, you yourself have the power to resolve the current issue between the Federation forces and Hastur.”

“By making peace with my husband, you mean.”

Regis nodded. “Is it prudent to involve the most powerful house on Darkover in a domestic problem?”

“You know nothing of the matter!” She glowered at him. “How full of advice you are, for everyone but yourself! Regis Peacemaker, Regis Kingmaker—is that how you intend to make your mark on history?”

“I have no such aspirations,” Regis said. “In fact, I would be quite content if history forgot me entirely.”

“We must honor those who have gone before us,” Rinaldo stepped in.

Tiphani, still seething, took her leave so that she might attend to Bettany. The mood remained somber for a time, punctuated by comments of no consequence.

Then Regis said, “This tension between you—” he did not say Hastur,for he meant Rinaldo personally, “—and the Terran Legate is not a good situation. It can too easily spread to include our entire Domain, as well as others and the Federation itself. Would you hear my advice?”

“I am always happy to hear what you have to say. However, I question whether you truly understand the matter.”

“As far as I can tell, it is a family dispute that ought not to involve powers of state. Let the Lawtons work out their differences free from outside interference. Establish a neutral ground where they may speak with one another without intimidation.”

“That is impossible. The matter has spiritual as well as political implications.”

“You mean because the woman is a coreligionist and says she receives visions? Voices, whatever? Rinaldo, those are symptoms of a sickness of the mind. If she is ill, she needs proper treatment.” And not blind trust from someone who only reinforces her delusions.

“I repeat, you do not fully comprehend what is at stake. At first, I could not understand why I had been driven from St. Valentine’s into this hotbed of licentiousness. But now, since the Lord of All Worlds has sent Lady Luminosa to guide me, I see my true calling. I am meant not merely to instruct a few boys who, like you yourself, will soon forget their good precepts. My destiny is to cleanse a city, a Domain . . . an entire planet.”

Lord of Light! He means it!

Danilo flinched and as quickly recovered himself. Rinaldo gave not the slightest indication he’d sensed the surge of dismay. He continued speaking about the poor, helping them through the winter, or opening the roads to pilgrimage.

Regis peered into his brother’s earnest, open face. He is a good man, for all his early years of isolation from the world. He means to do right in the world, he just has no understanding of what that is . . .

Rinaldo had fallen under the influence of those who were not so altruistic: first Valdir Ridenow, with his desire to see Darkover a Federation member, then Tiphani Lawton, a disturbed woman only too willing to incorporate Rinaldo’s faith into her own grandiose delusions.

My brother needs my help more than ever before.How could he turn his back on Rinaldo, a chervinekid among wolves?

27

Winter ended as abruptly as it had begun, as if the sky had exhausted itself. Snow gave way to sleet. From one tenday to the next, the layers of filthy snow shrank. True to his promise, Regis met every day with Rinaldo, except on cristoforofast days. Regis had no idea there were so many saints or occasions for suspending normal business, but he welcomed those occasions to remain with his family.

Despite his lingering grief at being separated from Danilo, Regis found an unexpected peace in the small domestic joys of sitting quietly with Linnea, listening to Kierestelli sing or teaching her the game of Castles, or playing with baby Dani. All those years when he had resisted the pressure to marry, he had no idea what he was refusing. How could he have? He had grown up in a cold and joyless house with only his distant, demanding grandfather and a loving but overworked older sister for comfort. No wonder he had regarded the catenasas shackles.

For all his contentment, Regis sensed a growing tension in the city. He saw it in Linnea as well, in the faint signs of restlessness, the flicker of vigilance in her eyes when she thought he was not watching. This idyllic time could not endure. All things changed. Nothing was certain but death and next winter’s snow. The milder weather would open the mountain passes . . . and summer would come, with whatever Comyn might observe the traditional gathering in Thendara.

Something else was coming, carried on the seasonal change. The world was no longer frozen solid.

Rinaldo proved an apt pupil; he had been a scholar at Nevarsin and had a good mind, even if he had been trained to memorize without critical understanding. At times, Regis thought his brother’s negative attitude toward the laranGifts of their caste had softened. Regis advanced the argument that such abilities, when trained and used properly, could do much good: in healing, in communication across long distances, in mining precious minerals or manufacturing and delivering firefighting chemicals. Once or twice they discussed the possibility of opening the old, disused Comyn Tower if they could find a Keeper and enough leronifor a working circle. In the end, however, Rinaldo refused to commit to the plan.

On the subject of relations with the Federation, Regis made greater progress. Rinaldo had all but broken off contact with Valdir Ridenow. Except for his closeness to Tiphani Lawton, Rinaldo had little interest in off-worlders and their material benefits. The Federation seemed to have enough internal difficulties without pressing the issue of Darkovan membership, but no one could predict how long that might last. Sooner or later, Darkover’s strategic importance, its location in the galactic arm, would bring it to the attention of the Expansionist Party.

“We cannot accept the meddling of Godless outsiders,” Rinaldo stated. “Valdir is right about one thing: the Federation, with its promise of an easier life, has destroyed the moral fiber of our society. Luminosa has seen this in a vision.”

Dan Lawton sent increasingly formal demands for the release of his wife, invoking the power of his office as Federation Legate. With all the diplomatic skill he possessed, Regis went about convincing his brother of the unwiseness of interfering between the Lawtons. He brought up the issue yet again at breakfast in the central parlor of the Hastur apartments. It was not the most cheerful of mornings, for the first edge of a storm front obscured the red sun. A damp chill pervaded the chamber. Even the warmth of the jaco, served unsweetened in monastery style, seemed fleeting. Danilo was out on some errand or another.

“Is it not written that a husband is responsible for the keeping of his wife?” Regis asked. “How can he do that when, for all he knows, she is held here against her will?”

“Ridiculous!” Rinaldo snorted.

“Yes, but her husband does not know it. Nor does he know of the work she does here or the companionship she provides to Lady Hastur. He is not an unreasonable man, and he is genuinely concerned about her health. If he were able to reassure himself that she is well, he might even approve the arrangement.”

Grudgingly, Rinaldo admitted that Dan Lawton had a legitimate reason to speak with his wife. Regis proposed to arrange a meeting at the Renunciate Guild House. The Guild House had a private room used to negotiate trade contracts, to which men might be admitted. The neutrality of the venue, along with Rinaldo’s promise that she would not be coerced into returning to the Terran Zone, should satisfy Tiphani.

“Lady Luminosa,” Rinaldo corrected.

“So she is called . . . here,” Regis conceded, “but her husband knows her only by her former name.”

Servants came in to clear away the remains of the meal. In the tension of the conversation, Regis had hardly touched the buttered pastries or cold meat pie. Rinaldo made no comment; perhaps he thought Regis was practicing abstemiousness.

Rinaldo waited until the bustle faded behind closed doors. “What you propose sounds reasonable, but I do not see the point of it. I have no intention of relinquishing Lady Luminosa, should her husband prove obdurate. It would be wrong to create any expectation that he might be allowed to take her back and subject her to—whatever it is they do there.”

“The Terranan are not monsters,” Regis said evenly. “They have freely shared their medical and technical expertise, to our advantage. Moreover, they have laws governing their citizens, rights that cannot be taken away.”

“I have granted her sanctuary with the inviolable Word of a Hastur.” Rinaldo’s voice shifted to a tone Regis was coming to know all too well. In this mood, Rinaldo would not be budged.

Regis was reluctant to let the matter slide. The woman’s influence over his brother had grown since Midwinter. He saw no possibility of awakening Rinaldo to the extremeness of her pronouncements; that Rinaldo listened to anyone else was a victory in itself.

“You must honor your word,” Regis said. “At the same time, it is unkind to leave Dan Lawton in ignorance about his wife’s well-being.”

If Linnea were separated from him for this long without so much as a word, Regis would tear apart the Castle walls with his bare hands to find her. Or want to, at any rate.

Perhaps recalling the teachings of St. Christopher, Rinaldo considered the point. Regis offered to take word to the Legate himself, saying, “He trusts my integrity. If I explain the situation, I believe that will put his worries to rest.”

“That is a compassionate thing to do.” Rinaldo wrote out a safe-passage request to allow Regis to enter the Terran Zone.

Since the day was young, Regis rode the dun gelding directly to Terran Headquarters. A wind had sprung up, damp and ice- edged, slicing through his cloak. He wondered if the fairer weather of the past tenday had been a deceit, winter’s mockery, and that true spring would be a long time arriving. At least Linnea and the children were warm and secure. He thought of Mikhail, still at Ardais and well out of Thendaran politics. And Danilo . . .

Here I am,he chided himself, a mother barnfowl making sure all my chicks are safe!

Outside the Terran Zone, Regis paid a street sweeper to look after the horse. He passed the checkpoint without incident. One of the Spaceforce guards escorted him to the Headquarters building. In the man’s friendly manner Regis read a hope that tensions between Federation and Castle might be thawing. Regis did not disabuse him of the notion.

Headquarters had not changed, not the glass and gleaming steel or the men and women in form-fitting uniforms, or the faint reek of ozone and machine oil; it might have been yesterday that Regis had last walked here with Danilo beside him.

As soon as Regis presented himself to the Legate’s office, he was ushered into the inner chamber.

Valdir Ridenow was sitting in one of the two chairs informally placed around a low table.

Dan Lawton stood to greet Regis. Valdir rose as well, an unreadable expression on his face. “Lord Regis, how very good of you to call.”

“ MestreLawton,” Regis said formally, then inclined his head to the Ridenow lord. “Lord Valdir.”

“Lord Regis. Legate Lawton, I believe this concludes our business.” With a slight bow, Valdir took his leave.

Once the door was safely shut, and Regis and Dan had seated themselves, Dan leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees.

“My god, Regis, what’s been going on? One day, Darkover is ready to petition for full Federation membership, and the next, it looks as though we’ll be formally evicted!”

“I believe that my brother, as Lord Hastur, has not yet settled on a course of action,” Regis replied. “Before we say anything more on that subject, may I ask what DomValdir wanted? Please tell me it was not to petition for separate Federation membership on behalf of his Domain.”

“I doubt the Federation would accept the application even if he did. I can tell you this, for it is public knowledge. DomValdir and his cousin Haldred have applied for Federation citizenship. He came here today to ask me to expedite the processing, and there is no reason I should not do so. Is there?”

Regis shook his head to cover his surprise. Had the Ridenow given up the cause of Darkovan membership, seeking instead the rights and protections of the Federation? What would come next—exile to the stars, as Lerrys Ridenow had chosen?

“I didn’t come here to investigate Valdir Ridenow,” Regis admitted. “I’m acting as my brother’s agent. I think he’s tired of getting complaints from you.”

“I’ve run out of polite ways to say, Return my wife or else.What does he think he’s doing, holding a Federation citizen? If he wanted to convince the Senate that Darkover is a barbaric planet that must be pacified for the safety of the entire galaxy, he’s made a good start.”

“I don’t think that’s what he has in mind. He’s not holding Tiphani against her will.”

“He’s standing in the way of her getting proper medical care, that’s what he’s doing!” Dan shoved himself to his feet and began pacing.

“You should have heard the way she was going on before she made a break for it! I knew she’d been exposed to some bizarre cults on Temperance, but I never dreamed—”

Dan reined in his outburst. “I’m sorry. It’s not fair to inflict my feelings on you, but I’ve had no one else to talk to. Oh, the medics here have diagnoses aplenty for what’s wrong with her, but no help for how it makes me feel!”

“Helpless. Desperate. Responsible.”

Comprehension flickered in Dan’s eyes. He lowered himself back into his seat. The color in his cheeks seeped away.

“Regis . . . I didn’t think.”

Regis made a dismissive gesture. “I’ve been granted leave to tell you that your wife is well—in body, at least—and content to remain where she is. My brother regards her as a valuable advisor, not to mention a companion for his wife.”

“Then heaven help them both! Encouraging her delusions is bad enough, but to be guided by them is insanity!”

“My brother doesn’t see it that way, but he has offered to arrange a meeting on neutral ground.” Regis detailed the proposal, adding, “I hope you can persuade your wife to accept treatment.”

“Tiphani is an adult. I can’t force her to come back. Or to get help, unless she’s a danger to herself or someone else.”

“Giving advice hardly constitutes a criminal assault,” Regis observed. “If she feels secure, she will be more amenable to seeing you and Felix, and that may open the door to reconciliation. How is your son, by the way?”

“Confused. Angry. How else should he be?”

“As are you, for good reason. But Felix, having lost his mother, now needs his father more than ever.”

Dan lowered his head, his features hidden. Regis thought how easy it was to become mired in a problem that had no solution.

At last, Dan said, “Thanks, I needed that reminder. I hope things work out for Tiphani and she receives the care she needs and returns to her old self. Meanwhile, I can’t set everything else aside. I have a son who needs me, as you pointed out, and work commitments.” His gaze was steady, his eyes shadowed. “And friends—”

With a quick gesture, Regis forestalled whatever Dan was about to say. “You’re a good man and a good Legate with a deep sensitivity to Darkovan culture, but you will be of no use to either us or your Federation if you don’t remain neutral.” Regis paused to let his words sink in. “Certainly, grant individual citizenship, negotiate trade agreements and leases for the spaceport, and conduct your usual business. But leave the internal affairs of the Domains to us.”

“Have I ever done otherwise?”

Regis shook his head. “No, but these are unusual times. We will come through them, and Darkover will reach a new accord with the Federation. I have opinions as to what that relationship should be, as do others. Until then, let us work out our own concerns without any appearance of taking sides.”

“As much as I can, I will.” Dan paused, his brow furrowed. “Except that . . . you know I tried to delay formal recognition of your brother as Head of Hastur.”

“Your technicians took a tissue sample from me for comparison. I appreciate your efforts, Dan. It was a difficult, confusing time. But what you did was hardly interfering with our domestic affairs. You were within your mandate to establish his identity.”

Dan shook his head. “It’s not that. When we did a genetic analysis of your brother, we mapped all his chromosomes . . .”

Regis still couldn’t figure out what his friend was getting at. Then he realized, all his chromosomesincluded those that determined gender. “I know Rinaldo is emmasca. He has never kept it secret. The condition may cause other anomalies as well . . . Are you saying he isn’t human?”

“I am saying there is no way he could have fathered the child his wife is carrying. It’s biologically impossible. He is genetically sterile.”

“Then who—”

Did that innocent-seeming child have a lover? Counting backward from Midsummer, she could not have been pregnant when she married Rinaldo. The implications of a son with no Hastur blood succeeding to the Domain were staggering.

It would break Rinaldo’s heart to discover the betrayal.

Dan lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender. “I have no idea, nor will I offer any advice as to what action, if any, you should take.”

“I hardly know what is necessary . . . or prudent.”

“Was I wrong to tell you?”

Regis shook his head. “The information is safe with me. I must ask you not to tell anyone else.”

“Only the doctor who performed the analysis knows. I will speak to her and have the records sealed.”

After a few parting comments, the two men wished each other well, and Regis took his leave.

“Tell Tiphani we miss her and hope to see her . . . when it becomes possible.”

After the artificial illumination of Headquarters, daylight seemed blessedly muted. Regis strode briskly past the Terran Zone perimeter, his mind still spinning. The air tasted of stone and metal. As he passed the checkpoint, the guard waved, a brief lift of one hand, and then returned to his work.

Regis reclaimed his horse with an additional tip to the street sweeper. Before he could mount up, however, Regis sensed he was not alone. He stilled himself, reins gathered in his left hand. His right hand slipped beneath his cloak to the dagger at his belt.

Air stirred behind his left shoulder. Regis heard a faint scuff of boot leather on stone . . .

The dagger slipped free. Regis turned, shifting his shoulder to swing the cloak out of the way—

And faced Valdir Ridenow, an arm’s-length away.

Valdir froze, hands well away from his body. “Lord Regis, we have lived through perilous times, you and I, but do you really think I would assassinate you in the middle of a street?”

“I do not know what you are capable of.” Regis slipped the weapon back into its sheath, but kept his fingers curled around the hilt. “Have you something to say to me? A farewell before you take ship for the stars?”

Valdir flushed. “I have no intention of abandoning my caste or my world. Federation citizenship is available to all as our right. It was a precaution only.”

“I truly do not care whether you are a citizen of the Federation or the Fourteenth Planet of Bibbledygook.” It might be better for Darkover if Valdir didgo far away. “What do you want?”

“A word.”

“Only one? Why would I grant you that much?” An evil mood had infected Regis. Seeing the other man’s face, taut and proud, he relented.

“Very well. I am listening.”

“It’s too early for ale, and this street is far too public,” Valdir said. “I know a place in the Trade City where we can get a back room.”

“Please don’t insult my intelligence.” Although Regis could hold his own in a fair fight, old habits still held. He was not fool enough to go anywhere private with a man who had shown himself to be unscrupulous or to allow Valdir any closer than arm’s-length. Danilo would have a fit if Regis gave such a scoundrel the chance to slip a blade between his ribs.

“Here? Out in the open?” Aghast, Valdir glanced to either side. The horse’s body granted little visual privacy, and every few moments, a pedestrian passed close enough to overhear them.

“I advise you not to say anything you do not wish made public,” Regis said dryly.

“You have no reason to trust me . . .” When Regis made no reply, Valdir went on in a rush, “Lord Regis, we’ve had our differences in the past. I never thought to say this to your face, but I—we—no, I cannot shift any part of the blame to my cousins. They only followed where I led.”

Was Valdir trying to apologize,to admit he’d made a mistake?

“I know you think my methods improper—” Valdir said.

Criminal, more like.

“—but I am not a man who shrinks from what must be done. I was right in principle, if not in my choice of an ally.”

“My brother, you mean.”

Valdir’s expression hardened in response.

“You thought you could manage him,” Regis persisted, “like a puppet. But he has priorities of his own and no interest in your precious Federation. You put him in power, and now you must deal with him.”

“He won’t listen! It’s impossible to have a serious discussion with him! He’s unstable, out of control! I don’t know what he’ll do next—no one is beyond his reach.”

Regis straightened, the joints of his spine crackling with tension. “Why should I help you with the mess you’ve dug yourself into? Why should I do anything at all for you?”

“I acted only as I thought best,” Valdir repeated.

For a long moment, the two men stared at one another. Regis remembered Dyan Ardais saying very much the same thing. The man called Kadarin had doubtless thought so, too.

“Better men than you have done terrible things for the good of Darkover. How does that lessen the harm they caused or restore the lives they destroyed?” Black rage boiled up in Regis .“You put Rinaldo where he is and made sure I had no power to oppose you. You married off your own kinswoman to him, though she was a child with no understanding of what that meant.

“You set Haldred as my jailor,” Regis stormed on, “you cut me off from friends. You kidnapped two innocent men, one hardly more than a boy, a deed so lacking in honor that it should haunt you to your grave.

“And you threatened to murder my paxman . . .”

Valdir blanched.

“So now you come whining to me that my brother has a mind of his own? I say, you can choke on it. There are more important things at stake than your petty ambition! Go home to Serrais and tend to your people, or get yourself to Vainwal like your kinsman Lerrys. Or freeze in Hell, for all I care! Just don’t expect any sympathy from me!”

Regis swung into the saddle, leaving Valdir standing alone.

The ride back to the townhouse settled his temper somewhat. The sky still threatened, but the storm was not yet upon him. The last portion of the trip, he found himself longing for the sunlit parlor, Linnea’s steadfast warmth, and the laughter of the children, as if these could stand as bulwarks against the cruelty of the world.

The moment Regis entered the foyer of the townhouse, he knew something was wrong.

“Oh, Blessed Cassilda, you’re back!” Merilys rushed through the interior door, face red, hands fluttering.

“What’s happened?”

“ DomnaJavanne—”

The sound of incoherent sobbing came from within, carrying the unmistakable imprint of Javanne’s laran.Regis thrust his cloak into the hands of the trembling servant and hurried inside.

The uproar led him straight to the family parlor, no longer a haven of tranquility. Javanne hunched on the divan, wailing. Linnea sat beside her, one arm around Javanne’s shoulders, speaking soothing words. Neither child was present, but surely Kierestelli must have sensed the jangled waves of grief and fury.

Gabriel—

Javanne looked up, saw Regis, and burst out in renewed weeping. He hesitated, feeling helpless in the face of such feminine outburst. If Linnea could not calm Javanne, then what could he do?

But Javanne was his sister, and she had been as kind an older sibling as she could. He lowered himself to the divan on Javanne’s other side and took her hand in his. Her skin was moist from wiping away her tears.

“ Breda,you are safe with us. Let us help you.”

Javanne’s shuddering lessened, but she could not speak, only shake her head.

Linnea said, “She held herself together long enough to tell me that Rinaldo has dismissed Gabriel as Commander of the Guards.”

“Why, for what cause?” Regis asked. Gabriel was one of the most capable and respected Guards officers in a generation.

“None that Javanne knew.” Linnea’s brows drew together and her lips tightened. “Regis, how can your brother do such a thing? He does not have the authority!”

“I’m afraid he does,” Regis said with a twinge of regret at how easily and dispassionately his grandfather’s lectures returned to him. “He is Lord Hastur and, nominally at any rate, Regent of the Comyn. The Comyn Council no longer exists, and with Lew Alton off-world, no one else has the rank to challenge him.”

Javanne straightened up, struggling visibly to control her sobs. “He—he—”

“The Lanarts have some claim to Alton,” Regis said thoughtfully. “Gabriel has a basis to challenge the decision, and many would stand with him.”

“See, it’s not so bad—” Linnea began.

“You don’t understand!” Javanne burst out. “He’s takenAriel!”

28

T aken Ariel?

Javanne took one deep breath after another, but managed to keep from bursting into renewed tears. Over her head, Regis met his wife’s eyes. Linnea’s bone-deep fear shivered through him. His first coherent thought was that Valdir Ridenow was up to his old schemes, and what could he want with Gabriel and Javanne—

No, Valdir tried to warn me.

“What do you mean, taken?” Linnea prompted Javanne.

“I left her alone—with her governess—in our quarters. Only for an hour, while I tended to—there’s so much to do, and Bettany’s useless! When I got back, Ariel was gone—the governess half out of her mind—a note—”

Javanne fumbled in a pocket and drew out a paper. Hand trembling, she held it out to Regis.

“Dear sister,”he read the scholarly script aloud for Linnea’s sake.

“Be at ease concerning the welfare of my niece. She is well, and her spiritual development is now properly—”with each phrase, his heart sank lower “— in the care of Lady Luminosa. Every means will be taken to ensure her continued safety, but it would be imprudent to interrupt her religious education.

“Rinaldo Felix-Valentine, Lord of Hastur”

“May all the demons in Zandru’s Seven Hells curse him!” Javanne cried. “Oh, my poor little girl!”

“It seems,” Linnea said, filling the brief pause, “that Rinaldo has learned his lessons from Valdir Ridenow all too well. I cannot think why he would want to set aside such a capable and loyal Guards Commander as Gabriel—”

“Because my husband isloyal, that’s why! Loyal to the Comyn,” Javanne muttered.

“—except to prevent Gabriel from stopping him,” Linnea finished.

Memories flooded Regis of the sickening fear when Danilo and Mikhail had been held prisoner. He would have done anything, given anything—even his own life—to save them. Danilo was an adult and Mikhail almost so, but Ariel was just a child . . .

Blessed Cassilda, what kind of monster would do this to a little girl?

“He won’t harm her. He still needs your cooperation,” Linnea was saying to Javanne in that cool, rational tone of hers. “Until we can find a way to release her, you must pretend to go along.”

Javanne gave Linnea a glassy-eyed stare of incomprehension. Her desolation shocked Regis into action. When he had developed near- fatal threshold sickness, she had reached him with her mind. She had talked him through the worst of it until his life was no longer in danger.

Regis grasped Javanne’s shoulders and forced her to look at him. She flinched at the first contact, but she did not resist. Her eyes reflected things that were not there.

Breda.Gently he opened his mind to hers, inviting her permission to make contact. She lowered her barriers.

He moved through the brittle flare of her terror, the confusion and grief—not only the loss of her daughter but the festering resentment over Mikhail, the son taken from her years ago to be the Hastur heir Regis needed. He sensed love twisting into bitterness and blame, at herself, at Mikhail for deserting the family— running away to Ardais to save his own cowardly skin—n o longer a son of mine!—

I must do something to ease her hurt,he thought, but had no time for it now.

At least Mikhail is beyond Rinaldo’s reach.For the moment.

Regis turned his attention back to the churning morass of his sister’s emotions. You are Hastur, and Comynara, grand- daughter of the greatest statesman of our time.

The crazed light in her eyes shifted, now a clear blue mirror. He conjured images of a woman whose sense of honor and duty had made her a credit to her Domain, one who had taken on responsibilities far beyond her age. A competent, resourceful wife and mother . . .

Regis startled at Linnea’s light touch on his arm. He had lost all sense of passing time. Javanne slumped beside him, pale and drained but calmer. Merilys entered with a tray bearing a pitcher of jaco,a tureen of soup, a plate of cheeses, and a basket of nut- studded rolls. At first hesitantly and then with ravenous speed, Javanne devoured the meal.

“I will speak with Rinaldo,” Regis assured her. “He still respects my counsel. I will make him see reason.”

“We must think carefully on how to proceed,” Linnea said.

Javanne got to her feet. “I had best return to the Castle, so messages can reach me without delay.” She looked a little unsteady as she took her cloak from the servant.

Regis asked one of servants to order a litter for Javanne’s comfort. When it came, she paused at the door, gave Regis a hard look, and then departed.

“If you were anyone else, I doubt she would trust you.” Linnea dropped into a chair and closed her eyes. The skin around her mouth had gone white.

Regis took one of her hands in his, feeling the chill in her slender fingers. “I must go to my brother. I cannot allow my sister to suffer like this.”

“You must not go.” Linnea shook her head. “Not yet.”

He knelt beside her, peering into her drawn face. Her eyes burned against the paleness of her skin. “There is no one else he will listen to.”

“Ah, my love, for a man who has grown up in a hotbed of Comyn politics, you are an incurable idealist. Don’t you see? He’ll come after ourchildren next if you dare breathe a word against him. Your plan to guide him has failed.”

Our children. Baby Dani—a nd Kierestelli.

His muscles went soft with horror. He wanted to contradict her, but in the pit of his belly, he knew she was right.

Regis could not accept that Rinaldo was beyond persuasion. He must give his brother a chance. What else could he do, he who had placed Rinaldo in a position of such power?

Something red and hot, implacable, surged up behind his throat.

Never again will I bend to the will of one who would make hostages of those I love!

“We must get the children beyond his reach,” Regis said. “You’ll have to go, too.”

She lifted her chin, and he saw the negation in her eyes. “That would set the hunt on us for certain. I must remain here, visible. But you must take Stelli to safety.”

“Leave you—at the mercy of kidnappers?”

“I am not helpless.” She drew herself up, and an invisible mantle of power shimmered around her shoulders. “I was a Keeper, and no man touches me without leave. I will be able to keep Dani close to me and protect him, but I cannot see to both children. Stelli is more vulnerable, for she is at the right age for Rinaldo’s school. Regis, promise to take her to those who will understand her—not the Terrans!”

Regis clambered to his feet. He could not afford the luxury of deliberation. The situation called for speed.

Where would his daughter be safely beyond the reach of even a Hastur Lord? And who would nurture her spirit?

Regis summoned a servant and ordered a horse to be made ready immediately. The Armida black was too old, so it must be the dun gelding. He would travel as he had before, in plain clothes, with his face and hair hidden.

“I’ll be but a moment.” He paused at the door to look back at Linnea. “See that she’s warmly dressed.”

Linnea did not ask where he was going. They both understood that no one, not even she herself, must have that knowledge.

Regis never knew what Linnea told the little girl. When, a quarter of an hour later, he swung her up on the saddle in front of him, Kierestelli looked at him gravely and said nothing. Linnea had bundled her in a servant’s cloak. She was so light, like a bird. With a pang, he thought how easily those winged creatures could be broken.

Linnea had packed a set of saddlebags such as any man out for a casual ride might carry. She handed Regis a leather belt, heavy with hidden coins. Kierestelli reached out a hand to her mother; Linnea touched the girl’s fingertips, and Regis felt the connection between them.

Be brave, my treasure. I do not know when I will see you again, but you will always be in my heart.

The dun pulled at the bit, snorting in excitement. Regis stroked the heavy neck; the beast would need all its strength for the road ahead. Linnea swung the gate open.

A hundred phrases rose to his tongue and died there.

If I don’t come back—

Aloud, he said, “Do what you can to hide my absence. I may be a tenday or more.”

She nodded, a quick decisive dip of her chin, a pulse of warmth caressing his mind, and then the dun surged through the opening and the gate closed behind them.

The most difficult part would be getting out of the city. Too many of the Guards knew him, but most recognized only the trappings of a Hastur Lord, not his features or posture. They would expect him to have an escort, for he rarely left his own walls without Danilo or a Guardsman.

No alarm had yet been raised. Unless Rinaldo meant to seize hostages from all his family members—a thing Regis could not contemplate even now—there would be no reason to forbid Regis from leaving the city. If questioned, Regis would simply have to bluff his way through as he’d done in his younger days.

As luck would have it, as Regis neared the Traders Gate, a procession approached from outside, some in costumes resembling monk’s robes, others in rags.

“Lord of Worlds,

Remove our sin.

Let the cleansing

Now begin.”

Mingled with the ringing of bells, the chanting grew louder. Farmers drew their carts aside, worsening the congestion at the gate. Until that moment, Regis had never thought any good might come from Rinaldo’s pilgrimages.

The Guardsmen rushed to tackle the disorder, leaving a space wide enough for a single horse. Regis touched his heels to the dun, and it surged through the opening. Once beyond, Regis maneuvered through the milling pilgrims, farmers, wagons, and laden pack animals. A white-bearded fellow in a shepherd’s coat pulled his chervineteam to a halt to let him pass. “The lass looks ill.”

Regis nodded his thanks. These simple people saw him not as a Comyn lord but as a father with a child in his arms.

In a surprisingly short time, the open road lay before them. There was still no sign of alarm or pursuit. Regis lifted the reins, and the dun shifted into an easy, ground-covering jog.

Kierestelli huddled against his chest, enduring the jarring gait without complaint. As they climbed the long slope into the Venza Hills, Regis drew the horse to a walk, letting it breathe. Near the top of the pass, he halted.

“Let’s rest here. Would you like to walk a bit?”

She jumped lightly to the ground. Regis was glad to stretch his legs. He’d been too long in the city and too little in the saddle. Joints and muscles unaccustomed to long riding would be sore tomorrow.

The child looked back on the city. “I’m not coming back, am I, Papa?”

What did Linnea tell her? Or what had Stelli herself guessed?

“Of course you are,” he hastened to reply. “I will come for you when the trouble is past.”

She seemed all at once bewildered and wise, terrified and unshaken. He did not want to frighten her with tales of men who would threaten children. He would have given anything to reassure her that the world was a safe place and everyone wished her well.

It would be a lie, as he himself had learned at an early age. When this crisis had passed, there would be other threats. No child of his could ever be carefree, not until the four moons fell from the sky. There would always be a compelling cause and a man willing to use violence to advance it.

This was why the Comyn had adopted the Compact, to limit violence to weapons that placed the user at equal risk. No clingfirewould rain destruction from the skies, no bonewater dust would poison generations to come. No laran-fueled inferno would turn cities to ashes and spaceships to crumpled wreckage.

Was Rinaldo guilty of another violation of the Compact by seizing little Ariel, who had no means to defend herself? Regis thrust the thought aside. He would deal with his brother once this precious daughter was safe.

While these thoughts jumbled in his mind, Kierestelli had been studying him. In her silvery gaze, he read trust but also a growing wariness. She understood, in a deep, wordless fashion, that she was being taken away from those who wished her harm . . . because the adults she depended upon could protect her in no other way. He wanted to deny it, to weep with helpless anguish.

“If . . . anything happens, no one must know who you are,” he said as they mounted up again. Thendara’s towers disappeared behind the curve of the sharply rising hills.

“Am I to have a new name? Am I to forget you and Mama?”

Such questions from so young a child.His heart ached.

“I hope you will never forget us as we will never forget you. But a new name is a good idea, don’t you think? A temporary name for the time you are away. Would you like to choose it?”

“I will think of one.”

Days passed, falling into a rhythm of travel. Skills Regis had not used in years came back to him: how to set a pace that both rider and horse could maintain, when to rest, where to find water and food. At first, they came upon an inn or small village at the end of each day’s travel. Here they found stabling for the horse, hot meals for themselves, and sometimes a bath. As the lands grew wilder, human dwellings became scarce. Regis was leery of using the public travel-shelters for fear of being remarked and remembered. They might also encounter bandits who, caring nothing for shelter-truce, would see him as one man to be easily overpowered, his goods and horse seized. In the end, he took the risk. If he had been alone, he might have chanced finding what shelter he could. The nights were still cold and wet with freezing rain turning into snow, and he decided the greater danger was to Kierestelli’s health. Fortunately, they never met other travelers. Some god—Aldones himself—watched over them.

They reached the River Kadarin on a sullen gray afternoon. The water was turbulent with its own storms. Froth laced the slate-dark water. The far shore was rocky, the trees leafless and stark as a thicket of thorns. A bitter wind whipped down from the Hellers. The dun tossed its head, tail clamped against rump. It didn’t like this place.

Me, either.Regis remembered stories of wolves ravening through the wild lands beyond the Kadarin. Human wolves roamed there as well.

The bank curved into a natural cove where a ferry boat was tied up at a wharf. A hut and outbuildings stood nearby, and a thread of smoke curled upward from a crude stone chimney.

Regis called out a greeting. An old man emerged from the hut in response. His beard was a wisp of river foam, his back bent, and his movements spare and nimble. He halted a few paces from the horse and swung his head from side to side in an odd searching gesture. Cataracts whitened his eyes.

“We seek river passage, friend. Is the ferryman about?”

“He stands here before you.”

Before Regis could stop her, Kierestelli jumped to the ground. She showed no fear, only curiosity. Awe lighted the ferryman’s weathered features.

“Forgive me, Child of Grace! I never thought to behold one of the beautiful folk!”

Kierestelli turned back to Regis with puzzlement in her eyes. “Papa, what does he mean?”

Blessed Cassilda, he thinks she’s achieri!

“We must cross the Kadarin as soon as possible,” Regis said.

“Aye, and on to the Yellow Forest.” The ferryman nodded, as much to himself as to anyone else. “Long have I searched for them, back in the days when I still burned with dreaming. But they would not be found. Not by me, oh, no, not by the likes of me. But you, you with this child I mistook for a moment . . .” He tilted his head, and Regis had the uncanny feeling that the old man saw far more in him than a tall man in a hooded cloak, that the ferryman saw through the Hastur beauty to the very heart of his cells and the chierilineage of the Comyn.

“. . . I think theywill find you.”

Uneasy, Regis glanced at the river. The ferryman was not only half blind, but half crazy as well. Still, who could tell about anyone who lived here, on the border of the wild lands? And who was the greater fool, the old man with his dreams of searching for a lost, ancient race in the trackless forest, or Regis for believing him?

Regis hesitated as the boatman shuffled off toward the ferry, gesturing for them to follow. Then Kierestelli pulled at his hand. She appeared to have no doubts. He decided to trust her instinct. In the end, what choice did he have? They could not cross the Kadarin on their own.

The boatman made the ferry ready and gestured for them to board. He turned his face toward the river, although how even a sighted man could make out anything in the shifting currents, Regis did not know. Kierestelli jumped, light and nimble, onto the ferry’s flat surface.

The dun snorted and balked at the edge of the wharf. Regis took hold of the reins and brought the horse’s head down. Speaking soothingly, he stroked the tense neck. As far as he knew, he had no trace of the Ridenow Gift of empathy with animals, but he had handled horses all his life. The terror in the dun’s eyes faded. Its muscles relaxed, and it dipped its nose. It moved forward, lifting each foot high. Its hooves made a hollow sound on the wooden deck

The boatman cast off the mooring lines and poled the ferry away from the shore. Seized by the currents, the craft rocked and tilted. The gelding tensed but held steady. Kierestelli positioned herself at the rail and peered over the purling waves.

At first, it seemed the currents were shoving and pulling the little craft and that all the boatman’s efforts had no effect. They would surely be carried downstream or overturned to drown. The old man showed no fear. His expression, eyes half closed, nostrils flaring as if to catch the river’s scent, resembled that of a hunter closing on his prey . . . or a lover wooing his lady.

The motion of the ferry changed. The sounds of water and wind blended like music. They glided across the river, slipping through the waves like dancers moving through the figures of a set. Kierestelli clapped her hands and the boatman grinned.

When the ferry reached the wharf on the far side, Regis almost felt sorry the crossing was over. He paid the boatman more than the usual fee. The dun leaped free of the boat and clattered across the wood-plank wharf, eager for solid land.

Before them lay tangled thickets and broken rocks rising to hills covered by twisted, leafless trees. The air was less chill than over the water but also less welcoming. It seemed to Regis that winter had never lifted from this forest.

Regis lifted Kierestelli to the horse’s back and then mounted behind her. She stared at the ferryman for a long moment, but he was already turning the boat.

“He thought I was one of the Beautiful Folk of the Forest,” she said in her piping child’s voice. When Regis made no immediate answer, she went on, “That’s where you’re taking me, isn’t it?”

Even before it came into view, Regis scented the Yellow Forest. They had been traveling for days, camping cold and rough at night, forcing their way through narrow openings and up jagged trails. Regis had begun to wonder if he had made a terrible mistake, if he had risked both their lives on a panic- born impulse. More than once, he thought they were lost. Under the overcast sky, the hills looked the same in every direction. Each time his courage wavered, however, the ghost of a trail would beckon and the horse would step forward, as if on the way to its own stable.

On the fourth afternoon, the air, which had previously carried only the smell of cold wet earth, grew warmer. They had been following a path along the side of a hill, dipping and then laboriously climbing again. Gnarled black-barked trees and underbrush had blocked their view. As they came around the next curve, the vegetation thinned. The path widened, dry and gravelly, as it led upward.

They crested the rise. Regis drew the horse to a halt and breathed in astonishment. The entrance to a wooded valley stretched before them. The trees shimmered, their trunks gray, their leaves pale yellow. A breeze turned the foliage into a rippling carpet of gold.

The Yellow Forest.

The next moment, the light shifted and the forest was no longer a jewel-bright garden but only a patch of trees clinging to last autumn’s leaves. They looked old, withered. Soon they would fall, from the battering of winter storms or the simple erosion of time. New growth would take their place, according to the natural cycle. There might be a dozen, a hundred such valleys through these mountains.

Regis felt his heart sink within his chest. The air, which had seemed so sweet, turned ashen. Hope had illuminated the scene below, but only for a moment.

They were almost out of food and probably lost. Kierestelli had not complained, but he could see in the gray tinge around her mouth that she was near the end of her strength.

Regis nudged the dun with his legs, and the horse started downhill, tucking its hindquarters. Knowing better than to hurry the beast, he let it set its own pace.

The bottom of the slope led to an apron of gravel and wind- twisted weeds. The gelding’s hooves rang on the loose stones. The place felt empty, without even the cry of a far-off raptor or the skitter of insect or rodent. The forest seemed to be holding its breath. As Regis halted the gelding a few paces before the edge of the trees, he sensed a flicker of—vitality? awareness? or simple wariness of any encounter in such a remote and lawless place?

“Halloo, the forest!” He raised himself in the stirrups. “I am Regis Hastur, and I seek the Folk of the Yellow Forest!”

He paused, not sure if he truly wanted an answer. Then a notion came to him that whether or not the last of the chierilived here, he ought to request permission before entering.

“I ask your leave to search for them here.”

He waited for a long moment, and then another. There was no response. Of course not. What had he expected, that the trees would part and open a path for him? That one of the Beautiful Folk would step forward, hands raised in welcome? Keral himself?

Keral . . .

The chierihad come down from these mountains to seek Regis, to offer help during the crisis of the World Wreckers. At first meeting, Keral had seemed a tall boyish figure with the exquisite beauty that marked Regis and all his kin. The chieriwas deceptively strong and yet possessed an endearing uncertainty. How much courage it must have taken to leave everything safe and familiar, to journey into a land of strangers and their machines.

Keral, no longer in neuter phase but fully female, dancing in ecstasy, silken hair rippling around the slender body . . .

Keral’s radiant smile as he gazed down upon his own baby, the firstchieri to be born in so many years . . .

After the departure of the World Wreckers, Keral and his child had gone back to the Yellow Forest, or so it was supposed. His mate, a Terran doctor, had disappeared about the same time. Keral’s child would be the same age as Kierestelli . . .

The dun had started moving forward of its own accord, neck arched, each foot placed with ceremonial precision. Regis sat, hands quiet on the reins, trusting the animal’s instinct.

They passed the edge of the forest, moving through dappled shade. Dry leaves crackled under the horse’s tread. A breeze ruffled branches overhead. Again came that hint of sweetness in the air, that stirring of life . . .

With it came a faint mental touch, so delicate that Regis could not be sure he had sensed it. Kierestelli shifted her weight, pressing against him. She took the reins from his hands. In trust, he closed his eyes, lowered his mental barriers—reached out with his laran.

Regis? Is it you, my friend?

Keral!

As quickly as it had come, the contact vanished. Regis shuddered with the recoil. No easy fading this, but a severing, brutal in its finality. Only a moment ago, his mind had been filled with the alivenessof the forest and the presence of Keral. Now he felt only an aching absence.

He would have given up in utter desolation, would have surrendered to a loss too great to bear, had the horse not kept going. The beast never paused in its careful stride.

How long they continued like this, Regis could not have said. He lost all awareness of the swollen Bloody Sun creeping across the sky beyond the canopy of wind-kissed leaves. Unshed tears left him half-blind. After a time, he became conscious of someone singing. He could not make out words, only a melody compounded of hope and regret, of joy remembered and echoed.

The singer sat in the saddle before him, his own daughter.

The horse came to a halt in a clearing. Slanting light touched the grasses and the low brush that, against the order of the season, bore a profusion of star-bright flowers. Regis breathed deeply, inhaling their perfume.

Kierestelli gestured that she wished to get down. Regis dismounted and helped her to the ground. She walked to the center of the clearing and halted. He hesitated, unsure if he should follow. Beside him, the gelding stood as if rooted in the layers of fallen leaves, head up, ears pricked, nostrils flaring.

Suddenly Kierestelli laughed and glanced back at Regis, her face alight. The next moment, something flickered in the forest directly ahead, a shift of light-filled shadow.

A chieristepped into the clearing. Regis caught his breath, but it was not Keral. This creature was far older, more ancient even than the trees behind him. Like Keral, he was tall, willowy thin, and seemed to dance rather than walk across the grass. He wore a flowing garment of the same opalescent silver as his hair. Bones arched, delicate and strong, beneath milky skin. The eyes that watched Regis with wary regard were likewise pale, almost colorless. And cool, neither welcoming nor hostile. Measuring.

“Child of Grace . . .” Without conscious intent, Regis formed the traditional greeting. He wanted to rush forward, to fall on his knees before this being of a race that had traveled the far reaches of space before his own kind had learned to walk upright.

Keral had been a child, lost and overwhelmed in the land of men. This chieriwas old, experienced, and in his own territory.

But Regis was Comyn, and Hastur. Whether his own lineage descended from the first Hastur, son of Aldones who was Lord of Light, or whether from the interbreeding of lost Terran colonists with this ancient race, his heritage was still a proud and honorable one. Respect he would offer, for respect was certainly due, but not groveling.

He came forward and bowed. “ S’dei shaya,Noble One.” You lend us grace.

“What seek ye here?” The voice was light and clear, the words an ancient form of casta.

“I am Regis Hastur, friend to the one of you known as Keral, and I seek protection for my child.”

For a long moment, the chieristared at Regis. Meeting that gaze was like looking into the heart of a living starstone.

“Keral has told us of your people, who kill their own young.”

Regis held himself erect, although he wanted to cover his face in shame that humans could threaten children, even babes in their cradles. His throat closed around the cry —“No, not all of us!”—but it was true. Whether by direct assault, by abuse or neglect, his kind did not always cherish their children or protect them from those who meant harm. He had lost enough of his own nedestrooffspring, had seen the horrendous damage done to those who survived, even Lew’s daughter Marja, even Lew himself . . . even he, Regis . . .

The truth, then.

Regis opened his mind to the slender, gray-eyed creature before him. Chieriwere telepathic. Let this one look into his heart and see the good and the ill, the honor kept and betrayed, the hopes cherished, all his failures revealed. Under that uncompromising regard, he had little confidence in his own worthiness, but he had every faith in Kierestelli’s.

Not for my sake, but for hers, I ask this.

He offered the image of his own brother, learning the ways of power from the likes of Valdir Ridenow . . . allowedthat power by Regis himself.

The time for making excuses for Rinaldo, for rationalizing and temporizing, had passed. No matter how much Regis wanted to think well of his brother—and there wasgoodness in Rinaldo, albeit colored by fanaticism—Regis could no longer stand by, tacitly cooperating with the abuse of power.

If you will keep my child safe so that I may act without fear of retaliation upon an innocent, then I will stop him.

Silence, waiting. Then: How?

In that question, Regis sensed the chieri’sabhorrence of violence. Chieridid not kill, Keral had insisted; they did not even eat meat.

Truth,came from the chieri’smind. Truth, not fine words.

“I do not know,” Regis said aloud, “I will find a way.”

The chierishifted his gaze from Regis to Kierestelli. A gust of air, warm with the scent of flowers, ruffled the silver-gilt hair. Kierestelli took a step and then another, and then she burst into a run. The chieriscooped her up in his arms. With a smile of heartbreaking radiance, he glanced once at Regis, then faded into the forest.

“Wait!”Regis had anticipated time to say his farewells, to reassure Kierestelli that he would come for her once the danger was passed.

To tell her that he loved her.

The chierihad disappeared, leaving a rustle of dead leaves and a sudden chill in the air. With a shiver, Regis wondered if he would be able to find this place and its inhabitants again. He envisioned himself riding through these hills, straining to catch a hint of gold in the trees, each time returning with a heart filled with ashes. He saw Kierestelli grow more and more apart from the human world, cherished but always an outsider. He felt the bitterness festering within her spirit as if it were his own.

He said he would come for me, but he never did.Is that how she would become a woman, how she would think of her father?

Memory nudged him, offering comfort: What had the ferryman said?

“They will findyou.”

29

Through the return journey, slower because of the weariness of the horse, Regis tried not to anticipate what he would find. On those occasions when he allowed his thoughts to leap ahead to Thendara and what might have unfolded in his absence, ill-omened images assailed him.

His absence had gone unnoticed . . . he had been declared a traitor . . . Linnea and the baby were safe, and Ariel back with her family, all forgiven . . . Linnea was imprisoned, Danilo executed—no, the thought was too devastating to contemplate —J avanne and Gabriel were outlawed . . . the Federation had intervened and Rinaldo was now a prisoner . . . there was open fighting in the streets, the Terran Zone blockaded . . . Rinaldo was beside himself with worry, eager for a reconciliation . . .

It was enough to drive a man mad.

Regis stopped at an inn along the Venza Road. The dun had been flagging since noon, and he himself was in need of a bath and shave. Regardless of the disguise in which he had left Thendara, Lord Regis Hastur could not come riding into the city looking like the roughest of mountain men. With luck, he would be able to slip past the gates with as little notice as he had left. If not, he must maintain at least the semblance of a proper Comyn lord.

The inn looked snug and well-kept. Regis kept his hood raised as he negotiated with the innkeeper for a room, a bath, and stabling for the horse. The man, whose stocky frame, rounded cheeks, and watchful eyes attested to the success of his enterprise, asked no questions beyond the desires of his guest, but he demanded payment in advance. Regis added a generous tip from his dwindling supply of coins. The innkeeper grinned and called for the stable boy.

“See to see to the horse, lad, and give it an extra ration of grain. I’ll warrant it’s seen hard travel this past tenday. Clean its feet well, mind you, and check the leg tendons for heat. As for you, m’lord,” he handed Regis a key, “upstairs and second on the left. Our very best room. Will you be wantin’ dinner in your room or down here, beside the fire? And hot water for the bath now, or after you’ve eaten?”

Regis glanced around the common room. It was almost empty except for a serving maid, most likely the innkeeper’s wife, and a pair of men in farmer’s thick-spun smocks, bent over their drinks. The fire’s warmth spread through the room. Chips of cedar had been added to the logs to freshen the air, mixing with the smells of fresh bread, roasted meat, and ale.

The two farmers had taken no overt notice of Regis, and he did not relish hiding in his room until morning. He took a seat in the darkest corner, his back to the wall. The innkeeper brought him a trencher of steaming slices of meat and boiled redroots, two thick, butter-smeared slabs of bread, and a crockery tankard brimming with ale. Regis blew away the froth and sipped, savoring the darkly rich brew. Warmth and contentment spread through his belly. The meat was a bit tough, but the roots were succulent and well-seasoned. A few more customers came in, locals by their greetings.

Regis waved the serving maid away when she would have refilled his tankard. The voices of the other men drifted over him. He should retreat upstairs before too many more came in. Just as he gathered himself to make an exit, bits of the conversation startled him into immobility.

“Ye’re daft to believe it, I tell yer,” one of the farmers pronounced. “Why, there’s not been a Comyn king since before me grampa’s time.”

King?

“Aye,” his mate chimed in. “What would the folk in Thendara want with a king?”

“Especially the likes of—what was his name? The young one that were killed about the time Sharra rose up in Caer Donn? Darrak? Derik?”

“That were he. Last of the royal line, he were.” One of the newcomers went on to express the opinion that the only sane thing the Elhalyns had ever done was to agree to the Hastur Regency.

Regis hardly dared to believe what he had just heard. Poor Derik had died without issue, and whatever was left of his kin were distant and scattered. The Elhalyn were not extinct, however, so perhaps one of them had come forward. What kind of Regent would Rinaldo make? He had not been able to dissuade an inexperienced upstart from claiming the crown.

Remembering his own feelings when faced with pressure to claim the throne, Regis was not sure whether to be amused or appalled at such folly. What, after all, was there to be king over? A handful of remaining Comyn, who had been rendered irrelevant by the upheavals of the last decade? A planet on the edge of colonized space, a marginal world struggling to preserve its identity?

As for himself, he was just as happy to let whatever idiot Elhalyn who wanted all that meaningless spectacle have it, so that steadier men could get on with the business of guiding Darkover into the future. That meant taking Rinaldo firmly in hand, one way or another. With these black thoughts, Regis slipped up the stairs to his room.

Regis slept surprisingly well, woke before dawn, and arrived at the city gates just before they opened. The sun crested the eastern hills and swept the valley of Thendara in clear rosy light. The night had been cold but not freezing, and newly sprouted vegetation lined the road. He had been gone over two tendays, and in the interval the last dregs of winter had faded.

A crowd had assembled outside the gates, farmers and carts laden with spring vegetables, a caravan of fur merchants with their Renunciate escort, and a handful of other travelers.

The gates swung open, and the line moved forward. The Guardsmen were letting people through with only a greeting. As Regis passed, a Guardsman brought the procession to a halt.

“Lord Regis? Is that you?”

For a moment, Regis considered and discarded the notion of denying it. One glimpse of his youthful features and white hair would put a lie to any claim of mistaken identity. He stated he’d been on the road, on Hastur business, which was true enough.

The Guardsman accepted his explanation without comment. If he thought it odd that a Hastur should travel without an escort, mounted on such a common- looking horse and wearing such clothing, he kept his opinion to himself. Regis decided against asking about the news for fear of appearing suspiciously like a returning fugitive.

Regis had not gone very far into Thendara, heading toward the townhouse, when he heard a man addressing the passing traffic. He nudged the dun through the pedestrians to the corner where the speaker stood on a platform. The reaction of the listeners ranged from acceptance to outrage, with much muttering.

At first, Regis could not make out the words that dismayed so many. When those nearest the platform moved off, he was able to get close enough to hear clearly. He recognized the speaker as a Guardsman who had once performed similar duties for the Comyn Council; now the man wore Hastur livery with a baldric bearing several glittering badges.

“Hear ye! Hear ye! Know all those present, by the order of His Majesty, King Rinaldo Felix-Valentine, that as of this day, no man shall hinder the free practice of the cristoforofaith . . . Hear ye! Hear ye! Know all those present . . .”

Rinaldo . . . King?

Had the entire world taken leave of its senses?

Regis urged the dun through the swirling crowd. The horse, startled by the determination of its rider, lunged forward. Pedestrians scattered. A woman hissed a curse as she snatched her toddler out of the horse’s path.

Once free of the crowd, Regis kicked the dun into a hard gallop. Its hooves clattered on the paving stones. The saddlebags flapped like leather wings against its flanks.

The gelding slid to a halt in front of the town house. Regis jumped to the ground and shoved the reins into the hands of the startled groom.

“Lord Regis, what—”

Regis was already racing to the house. He scrambled up the steps and through the front door.

“Linnea!” he shouted with all the breath left in him.

Everything in the foyer looked as should, with no sign of forced entry.

Linnea!

He darted into the sun-lit parlor where she liked to nurse the baby.

Empty—

Heart pounding, he started toward the stairs. A slight, feminine shape appeared along the shadowed corridor. His heart lifted, but it was Merilys who stood there.

“My wife—” Regis grabbed the girl by the shoulders as if he could shake the answers from her. “Is she—my son—”

Cario , I am here.

Linnea emerged from her own bedroom, a shawl in disarray around her shoulders, little Dani in her arms. His face was flushed with sleep, one cheek reddened where he had pressed himself against her breast. A bubble of milk gleamed at one corner of his tiny mouth.

Regis could not speak. It was enough to breathe.

With a glance that said, We will discuss things privately,Linnea summoned the coridom.The steward arrived a moment later. Linnea excused herself while Regis was giving instructions for the servants to be properly cautioned not to comment on their master’s unorthodox appearance and sudden return.

Linnea came back without the baby a moment later, her dress and hair impeccable. Merilys carried a breakfast tray into the parlor, tidied the hearth, and then departed with a curtsy.

The moment the door closed behind the servant, Regis caught Linnea in his arms. Her body felt brittle with unvoiced questions.

“Stelli is safe,” he murmured, “and will remain so as long as the Red Sun rises.”

Her muscles softened, and she let out a deep breath.

“But you—I should never have left you here!” he cried.

Linnea’s gray eyes darkened. “Where would you have me go? Not to High Windward, not traveling with a baby this early in spring. The roads would be barely passable for the hardiest traveler, let alone a woman with an infant.”

She had a point. High Windward was no longer a fortified strong-hold, and even when it had been, it had fallen to a determined assault. Linnea would not risk so many other lives by seeking sanctuary there. Once Rinaldo realized she had fled, it would be the first place he would send for her.

Only one place on Darkover was truly immune from either royal command or military assault.

Now Linnea shook her head with a firmness Regis had come to recognize. “I will not endanger my friends by bringing them into this quarrel. Since the Ages of Chaos, the Towers have remained neutral. They must continue to do so. Let us speak no more of this. I will remain here, at your side.”

She set about pouring the jaco.“From the uproar of your return, I gather you heard the news.”

Regis took a cup and lowered himself to the divan. She sat down beside him.

“When I first heard, and that was rumor only,” he said, “I thought it must be some halfwit who’s been hiding out in the back corridors of Castle Elhalyn all these years, now seized with delusions of royal glory. It didn’t occur to me it might be Rinaldo. What was my brother thinking, to get himself crowned? The monks at Nevarsin never preached royal ambition.”

“They were quick enough to promote the notion of a cristoforoking,” Linnea said darkly. “Some of Rinaldo’s new ‘councillors’ produced historical records that the Hasturs had once held the throne.”

Regis felt a sudden, heavy tension in his jaw muscles. “Of course, no Elhalyn candidate came forth to protest.”

“This isn’t an usurpation in the strict legal sense. Rinaldo took the matter to a senior judge of the Cortes, who ruled that he has a legitimate claim.”

“The same judge, no doubt, who presided at the crowning.”

Linnea raised one slender eyebrow. “Along with every Comyn in the city . . . except you.”

Regis had hoped his absence might have gone unnoticed. He had not planned on missing such a public event.

“Of course,” Linnea said, “we were both expected to attend the ceremony. I cannot tell you how tempted I was! In the end, though, we both declined with regrets.”

“Hmmm. How did you manage that?”

A smile twinkled behind her eyes. “With dexterous diplomacy, worthy of the most convoluted Tower politics. A touch of milk-fever required my seclusion and your attendance on me. The refusal was remarked, of course. For several days, I expected a summons for you to present yourself and explain.”

“But none came?”

She shrugged. “It seemed my subterfuge had been successful, or Rinaldo was so occupied with his own concerns that other things took precedence.”

“My brother would not overlook my refusal to witness his coronation and thereby endorse it. Another Comyn would use such a lapse as grounds for a blood feud.”

“Rinaldo was . . . annoyed. Disappointed. Furious. Incredulous. Concerned. All in turn, and no reaction lasting very long. Still, you should tread lightly.”

“That is, until this mockery of a kingship has been nullified and things put to rights.”

Linnea got up and moved restlessly about the brightly lit chamber. She seemed a fey, wild creature, and Regis realized that he did not know her well. They had had a few brief, intense encounters and a short span of married life, little more.

“Just because Rinaldo’s coronation was hasty and unexpected does not mean it can be easily undone,” she remarked. “Unless he himself chooses to abdicate, he is King of the Domains. Or would you set aside law and tradition because the particular personalities do not meet with your approval?”

She was right. He must not waste time and resources on the colossal anachronism of a king in this age. He must try to understand Rinaldo’s intentions, reason with him, and guide him. And if he could not . . .

Regis surged to his feet and strode to the window. He looked over the walls to the city beyond. “What about my brother’s court? Who has replaced Gabriel as Guards Commander?”

“At first, it was to be Haldred Ridenow, but at the last minute, Rinaldo changed his mind and appointed Bertram Monterey.”

“I don’t know him.”

“He’s only a junior officer, but he is a devoted cristoforoand absolutely loyal to Rinaldo.”

“How is Gabriel taking all this? And my sister?”

“Javanne expected you to storm the Castle and rescue her daughter, and when you didn’t . . .” Linnea winced.

My poor sister, to have lost two children. First Mikhail to me as my heir, then Ariel . . .“Do you now fault me for seeing to Stelli’s safety first?”

“I have not changed my mind. You did the only thing you could, no matter how disappointed Javanne might be.”

“I suppose you will now remind me of the impossibility of eating nuts without breaking their shells.” Regis could not mask the anguish in his voice.

Linnea’s brows drew together, troubled but resolute. “If it had been Stelli instead of Ariel in Rinaldo’s clutches, I might feeldifferently, but I would thinkthe same.”

“I wish my sister had your strength of mind. I fear she will never forgive me for betraying the bonds of our kinship.”

I have lost Danilo and my brother, and now Javanne as well . . .

“There is an even greater reason for me to remain here, despite the risk,” Linnea said with quiet intensity. “Regis, you act as if the weight of the world rested on you alone.”

“The failure is mine,” he said stubbornly. “So must the remedy be.”

Linnea regarded him with that deep, searching gaze, but she made no attempt to breach the fragile shell of his isolation.

A heartbeat later, he had gathered himself. “Given what you just told me, I must waste no more time in dealing with my brother.”

“What will you do?”

“Try to reason with him, certainly. He must be brought to see this concentration of power cannot be good for Darkover.”

“And if he will not listen to you? What then?”

“I will fly that hawk when his pinions are grown,” Regis retorted. “Do you mean to cripple me with prophecies of failure?”

She sighed but did not argue further.

Regis went to make himself presentable for a visit to the Castle. He did not know what awaited him or what arguments or actions he might be forced to take. If Rinaldo would not listen to reason, what then?

What then?

30

By the time Regis arrived at Comyn Castle, he had acquired an escort of three off-duty City Guardsmen, all seasoned officers. The sincerity with which they offered him their service as an honor guard bespoke their hope that now all things would be put right. Eventually, Regis would need a paxman, and Gabriel might be willing, but in the urgency of the moment, these volunteers provided the necessary security.

The three Guardsmen sliced through knots of pedestrians. Even the occasional rider steered clear, so they made much better time than Regis could have on his own.

They passed the outer gates of Comyn Castle and entered an open-air courtyard. In summer, the garden would be a haven of flowers and arching green branches. Now the benches were rain- wet, and the buds of the branches had only begun to open. The place seemed to be holding its breath.

The three Guardsmen who had attached themselves to Regis, although none had been on active duty since the coronation, were well informed. At this hour Rinaldo was within the Castle, not visiting one of the many new cristoforoshrines about the city. The new king held court daily in the same elegant hall used for his wedding, adjacent to the Grand Ballroom.

Regis would have preferred a private place where each might speak in confidence, most likely the study that Regis still though of as his grandfather’s. He had not anticipated the effect of Rinaldo’s newly royal status.

A pair of Castle Guards stood at attention outside the Grand Ballroom. They looked barely more than cadets, and they offered no objection as their senior officers escorted Regis through.

The hall had been newly furbished with hangings and carpets. Paintings and sculptures of various cristoforoholy images, many of them gilded or bejeweled, dotted the walls. Between these religious objects and tapestries that looked as if they had recently been dragged from the Castle storage rooms, there was hardly an inch of bare wall. Regis, who had never cared for ornate embellishments, felt as if the true beauty of the place, the stones so beautifully cut and placed, and the panels of translucent blue, had been crusted over and obscured.

Regis drew himself up. The decoration was trivial, although it revealed much about the man who had ordered it. He must not allow it to distract him from his own purpose.

With his escort on each side and behind him, Regis marched down the central aisle. Onlookers stared as he passed. The faint, rankling buzz of a telepathic damper blurred his laransenses.

A dais had been erected at the far end. Rinaldo occupied the massive carved chair used by Danvan Hastur when he presided over meetings of the Comyn Council. In fact, Regis realized, the configuration of the room approximated that of the Crystal Chamber. The arrangement of the seating formed a roughly octagonal shape, angled toward the throne. Rinaldo seemed to be saying, As the Comyn once ruled the Domains, I do now.

The assembly drew back as Regis approached. He knew some of them, city dignitaries, members of the Telepath Council, and a few minor Comyn. All were formally dressed, and many looked pleased with themselves.

Rinaldo’s courtiers are showing off, vying for power and royal favor,Regis thought with disgust. Here and there, he heard whispers and expressions of surprise.

Ignoring several attempts at greeting, Regis drew near the dais. Rinaldo was wearing a long robe in Hastur colors, the fir tree embroidered in silver thread. His belt and ornamental chain were of gleaming copper. A crown perched on his head, bright with Ardcarran rubies and sapphires. Danilo stood in the proper position of a paxman, features waxen, mouth set. His eyes came to life when he saw Regis, but he gave no other sign of recognition.

A man in a suit of opulent bronze brocade knelt at Rinaldo’s feet, hands placed in the attitude of a vassal pledging his loyalty. Rinaldo bent forward, his face intent. A cristoforopriest, who had been standing beside the dais, came forward.

Regis slowed his pace. The ceremony was akin to that used among the Comyn from ancient times. Regis himself had, at various occasions, both given and accepted oaths in just this fashion, but never with the participation of a priest . . .

The meaning of the ritual became evident a moment later: The new vassal had just publicly converted to the cristoforofaith. Regis set his jaw to suppress a shudder. In Darkover’s long past, kings and re-gents and Comyn lords had demanded—and received—fidelity of word and deed, even unto death. A man’s religious beliefs were matters for his own conscience. They had never been the price of royal patronage.

The ceremony concluded as Regis reached the dais. Rinaldo’s head jerked up, his expression momentarily unreadable. The newly sworn liegeman withdrew with alacrity.

Regis schooled his features into a pleasant smile and bowed. He lowered himself to the exact degree due to a kinsman of slightly higher rank. It was the salutation of a Comyn lord to the Head of his Domain, nothing more. How easily such niceties came to him, but, then, he had been drilled in the intricacies of Comyn politics since the time he could walk. If the nuances were lost on Rinaldo, they would be obvious to those few Comyn present.

“Regis! Brother!” Rinaldo exclaimed. “Where have you—I mean—we bid you welcome!”

Regis permitted himself an answering smile. “It gladdens my heart to see you well, my brother. Or should I say, Your Majesty?”

“It seems we have much to say to one another.”

“Then we had best do so privately.”

Rinaldo surged to his feet and raised his voice, addressing the assembly. “No more for today! Out, all of you!” As he strode out the door behind the dais, he barely managed to avoid knocking over the startled priest. Danilo followed closely, as a paxman should. Regis thought he saw a fleeting smile lighten Danilo’s mouth.

Rinaldo rushed along the Castle corridors at such a pace that Regis did not catch up with him and Danilo until they halted outside the study door.

“You’re not needed,” Rinaldo snarled at Danilo.

“As you wish, vai dom,” Danilo bowed with impeccable grace and backed away.

Rinaldo slammed the door and rounded on Regis. “What do you mean, disappearing without a word and then returning in such an ostentatious manner, interrupting my court?”

Regis made sure his own voice was under steady control. “I should as soon ask you, my brother, what youmean by defying custom in claiming the throne no Hastur has wanted for generations. I might inquire whether you feel yourself more worthy than Grandfather,” or myself, for that matter,“or what sudden and overpowering need our people have for a king. But none of these questions will accomplish anything except to widen the rift between us.”

“If there is a rift,” Rinaldo said tightly, “it is yourdoing. You promised to advise me, and then you vanished! My agents could not find you anywhere! Where did you go? With whom did you meet?”

His eyes narrowed. “What exactly were you up to?”

Regis had never before heard such naked hostility in his brother’s voice. “Let us sit down and discuss matters like civilized men.”

Trying to appear more calm than he felt, Regis walked over to the two chairs before the hearth, thus drawing Rinaldo away from the desk. There was no point in placing such an imposing piece of furniture between them; it would only serve to heighten the antagonism.

Rinaldo hesitated for a moment, then threw himself into one of the chairs. He was clearly angry at having lost the initiative.

Regis moved into the breach. “I was attending to necessary family business, if you must know. Am I not free to do so? Or do you intend to take care of our entire Domain single-handedly?”

When Rinaldo glared at him, Regis shifted to a more conciliatory tone. “You trust me enough to ask for my advice. Can you not trust me to handle my own affairs and fulfill my other responsibilities?”

Rinaldo had the grace to look abashed. “I was wrong to be angry when I did not understand. I had thought—erroneously, I see—you would be by my side. Everyone said it was an insult that you did not attend my coronation.”

“I am here now, and we have much to discuss. How did it come about that you are now king? What crisis required such a drastic step?”

Not to mention usurping the old faith with a relatively minor sect and then demanding conversion as proof of loyalty?

“If you are going to lecture me on how change takes time, save your breath!” Rinaldo snapped. “I have already heard more of such nonsense than I can stomach. I have been charged with the spiritual welfare of our people. The rightness of my calling has been verified by miracles—or do you think an emmascasiring a son is an event that happens every day?”

“That is indeed an extraordinary thing,” Regis admitted, choosing his words with care, “but not one that requires a supernatural explanation.”

Rinaldo leaned forward, his face alight with the fervor Regis had come to know. “I had been granted worldly power, but I needed more of it to fulfill my mission. We Hasturs are the most powerful Domain on Darkover. Men listen when we speak, and our word is accepted as an oath. At first, I thought that prestige was enough, but I was wrong. The very people I have been sent to succor refused to alter their vile practices. All my pleas and exhortations could not reach them.”

“You have been Head of Hastur for only a short time,” Regis pointed out. “Even Grandfather could not sway tradition in a single season. A better strategy might be to lead by example, by attraction rather than by force.”

Rinaldo responded with a dismissive gesture. “That is all very well when debating women’s fashions or the mode in musical entertainments. It is criminally negligent when men’s souls are at stake! Who knows how many have already died in sin, condemned to eternal torment, when quicker action on my part might have saved them?”

Regis was startled into momentary silence, although upon reflection, what had Rinaldo said that did not follow from everything that had gone before?

“How can you hold yourself responsible for the fate of all men?” Regis asked incredulously. “Is not each free to choose as his conscience dictates?”

Rinaldo replied, as if this were the most reasonable thing in the world, “Why else have I been placed in a position of authority over so many?”

Regis thought bitterly that the real reason Rinaldo had been given such power was that he, Regis, had so readily relinquished it. He wrenched his own thoughts back to the present problem. With those sentiments and ambitions, Rinaldo would naturally seek the means to compel what he could not persuade.

“It is a very serious matter to assume a crown,” Regis said. “Long ago, wiser men than you and I decided that the best way to influence the course of history was by wise counsel and restraint, by inspiration instead of command.”

“They must have been fools! No, no, of course not. They were men without divine purpose. They could afford to work subtly. I have not the luxury of such patience. I see you do not approve, my brother, just because you yourself would never take such a bold step.”

“If—” Regis began.

“If you had been here, and if you had counseled me otherwise, my decision would have been the same. Come, do not look so grim. A coronation is not a funeral! Think of the good we can accomplish!”

Regis thought of Javanne, half out of her mind, of Gabriel thrust from the office he had held so honorably for so long. Of Ariel, torn from her mother. Of Linnea, begging him to take Kierestelli to safety. Of Danilo . . .

“Power cannot coerce good will,” Regis declared, “nor can bad means serve good objectives. That is the lesson we have learned in our long and bloody history from the Ages of Chaos.”

“Ah! This is why I need you here to advise me, to be sure that I use the power of the crown in a worthy manner. I know what I am called to accomplish. I have been given the means. All I lack is guidance as to prudent yet effective methods.”

Regis bit back a caustic reply. He should take his own advice: Persuade, reason, shift gradually . . . do not provoke a man so set in his opinion by outright confrontation.

“Your goals are noble indeed,” he said slowly, “and there is no question that you now have the power to do much good. You have spent the better part of your life among men of faith and discipline, so of course you are disappointed in the failings of those who have not had such benefits.”

Rinaldo nodded, the tension in his features lightening.

“I suspect that men are more stubborn about their faith than almost anything else, even their choice of wives.” Regis kept his tone easy. “They will fight for their religion when they will fight for nothing else. I believe the Federation worlds have strict laws against the imposition of one faith over another.”

“Yes, that much is true.” Rinaldo looked thoughtful. “Lady Luminosa said as much. Even when the One True Faith is reviled, it is never proscribed.”

“It would be a terrible thing,” Regis suggested, “if its followers were forced to turn against their own consciences and worship false gods.”

Rinaldo nodded agreement.

“That being the case,” Regis went on in the same tone, “might not men of other faiths feel the same way? Most of our people know little or nothing of cristoforoways. Who knows what lies they may have been taught? Surely, once the truth is known, and the virtues of the faith have been demonstrated to them, they will eagerly embrace it.”

And if they did not, Regis would have bought time to soften his brother’s stance.

Rinaldo expelled a sigh, half frustration, half resignation. “I suppose you are right. But I cannot allow anyone of prominence in my court to follow any other religion. How could I trust their counsel? How could I be sure they were not under the influence of demons masquerading as this absurd pantheon?”

“How can any man be sure of any other?” Regis returned, thinking of all the betrayals and shifting alliances in his life. If a man behaved honorably, did it matter which god he answered to? He already knew what Rinaldo would say to that.

For a moment, the two brothers fell silent. Regis debated whether to press the issue or let it go, resting with what he had already achieved. The next opportunity for moderation might come slowly, in its own time, but it would surely come. Briefly, he considered bringing the conversation to a close with whatever cordiality might be expressed.

I have failed Javanne once. I cannot leave without trying to restore Ariel to her.

“I mentioned that I was absent on family business,” he began, and he saw Rinaldo’s interest rouse. “There is still more of that to be discussed. And, hopefully, an accord reached.”

“The Bearer of Burdens reminds us of the holy nature of blood connections,” Rinaldo replied.

Regis knew he was taking a risk, that he might well cross an invisible line and send his brother into another fit of self-righteous indignation. Carefully, he said, “You and I, for all the estrangement of our early lives, have reached an understanding. But we are not the only members of our family. We have a sister who is also a devoted wife and mother.”

“A woman of virtue. Yes, I do believe our sister is that. I have never heard a word spoken against her.”

Regis wished his heart were not pounding quite so loudly. This was an argument he must win, but not by laranGift or skill with steel, not even with cleverness of words.

“As a loving parent, she is of course concerned with the welfare of her children,” he ventured.

Rinaldo nodded, apparently not yet seeing the thrust of the argument.

“She is worried about her daughter. No, she is beside herself.” Thoughts flowed more clearly now, words rising to his lips. Compassion, Regis realized with no little surprise, was a stronger foundation from which to argue than confrontation. He reminded himself that he had not yet heard Rinaldo’s side of the story or his rationale for separating children from their parents. Perhaps Rinaldo truly believed he was doing good.

“Brother, I do not know the details of how our niece Ariel came to be taken from her mother or the child’s feelings about the matter, but I do know how much it distresses Javanne. As her nearest kinsmen, it is our obligation to ease her suffering. Can we not work together for her sake?”

Rinaldo protested, “Surely she understands as do the other parents—”

Blessed Cassilda, there are others?

“—it is for the children’s salvation to be properly instructed—” Rinaldo broke off at the clamor of voices and footsteps outside the door. Tiphani Lawton burst into the room without knocking. Her lips were unnaturally pale, her hair had been slicked so tightly to her skull that it appeared painted, and she wore a bizarre combination of the brown robe of a cristoforomonk and a costume from a musical entertainment. An enormous yellow stone, off-world amber, swung between her unbound breasts on a chain of copper.

“I was told—Holy saints, he isalive!” She did not look at all pleased to see Regis sitting companionably with Rinaldo.

Regis did not rise, as he would have had he encountered her as the wife of the Terran Legate. Instead, he inclined his head in her direction. “I am well, as you see.”

Rinaldo’s expression shifted to anxiety as he got to his feet. “Lady Luminosa, you lend us grace. Is anything amiss? How fares my wife and unborn son?”

“All proceeds in accordance with Divine Will,” she hastened to reply. Rinaldo’s question had broken the momentum of her entrance. “I heard—” she stumbled, recovered herself, “I felt myself summoned to Your Majesty’s presence.”

With the practice of years under his Grandfather’s tutelage, Regis suppressed his incredulity.

“Of course,” Rinaldo said warmly. “Your inspiration never fails our holy mission, even before I myself have recognized the need. Now all is made clear. My good brother here has heard slanderous tales about the new school we have established for the uplifting of moral values in our children. I was about to assure him that this strategy is not only beneficial but necessary.”

Tiphani settled herself with a lift of her chin and a smile that was more triumph than pleasure. She moved so that Regis would be forced to look up at her. Before she could draw breath to speak, however, he broke in.

“ Mestra,nothing would give me greater pleasure and edification than to listen to you, but I am here on pressing family business and have not the luxury of time. Please accept my thanks for your dedication.” Then he stood, towering over her. Instinctively, she moved back.

“I—I—” Tiphani stammered, glancing from Regis to Rinaldo. She was enough a diplomat’s wife to know when she was being dismissed. As she took her leave, she gave Regis a venomous glare. Regis responded with a neutral bow.

Alone again with his brother, Regis picked up the thread of his argument. “No matter how worthy or virtuous the goals, if an action harms innocents, it cannot be good. Can we not find another way of accomplishing what you desire, one that does not cause our sister so much anguish?”

“I have been graced with this power and the vision of what it was intended for. I must not flinch from using whatever means come within my grasp.”

“I have heard very much the same more times than I ever wished,” Regis said, unable to keep a shading of bitterness from his voice. Some of the men who had uttered those sentiments had been his friends, others his enemies. Most of them were dead now, leaving piles of bodies and smoking ruins in their wake.

“Javanne is not an obstacle but your sister, a woman of your own flesh and blood who grieves the loss of her daughter,” Regis went on. “ Youhave the means to ease her pain and restore her family.”

With a restless gesture, Rinaldo shifted in his chair. He looked at the fire, about the room, anywhere but his brother’s eyes. “I cannot rely on men of uncertain faith to reform an entire world. You yourself said change comes slowly, and men must learn to accept new things. What better way to accomplish this than by the education of the young, who have not yet been polluted by false doctrines and sinful practices?”

“Rinaldo, that is besides the point. You—or if not you yourself, on your orders—forcibly removed these children from their families. You can disguise what you did in all the fancy language you like, but it is still kidnapping!”

With an effort, Regis reined his temper under control. He was only a breath away from words that could not be unsaid. From Rinaldo’s expression, both stricken and adamant, it would not take much to push him too far.

“There are better ways of promoting tolerance of the cristoforofaith,” Regis said in a more moderate tone. “I myself can testify that indoctrination imposed unwillingly upon the young rarely works. If it had, I would have converted during my student years at St. Valentine’s. The monks certainly tried to convince me of the error of my ways.”

“You always were a recalcitrant student,” Rinaldo said, softening.

“I believe the correct term is blockhead.” Regis returned his brother’s grin. “Remember, too, that I went there at Grandfather’s wish, if not my own. Can you imagine the situation if he had been forced to send me?”

Rinaldo considered this. “From what I know of our grandsire, he was a formidable opponent and not a man to bend to circumstance. He would have raised half the Domains against us.”

Regis let the comment stand. “He certainly would have made his disapproval known. Who then would have listened to the truth of the holy saint’s teachings?”

For a long moment, Rinaldo did not respond. There was no real answer to the question, and to press the point would surely lose any sympathy Regis had thus far achieved. Moving slowly, as if his joints pained him, Rinaldo crossed to the fireplace. He laid one arm along the mantle. The gentle orange glow from the hearth warmed his features.

“I can’t give up now, and yet I can’t go on. I hoped we could begin a new generation, one dedicated to truth and virtue. Free from the idolatrous traditions of their elders. But it is not so easy, is it? When I think of how I might feel if my own son had been taken from me and taught—” he broke off, his breath catching in his throat. “Can these others, Javanne and the rest, feel any less?”

He turned back to Regis. A fire burned behind his eyes, but perhaps that was only the reflection of the hearth. “What am I to do? How can I keep faith with my calling? How can I reconcile the cloister and the crown?”

Regis stood up and moved into the heat of the fire. They were of a height, Rinaldo and himself, so that their gazes met levelly. On impulse, he placed his hands on Rinaldo’s shoulders, almost a brother’s embrace. The physical contact brought no hint of laran communication, yet Regis felt a deep emotion resonate through Rinaldo’s spare frame.

“Be generous of spirit, as I know you are. Send the children back to their families. By all means, keep the schools open, but offer the teaching freely to any who desire it. Then . . . when your son is born, become an example and inspiration to others.”

Regis saw the hardness lift from Rinaldo’s eyes. The brother he had longed for emerged from the mask of despotic fervor.

The moment could not endure. Rinaldo sighed. “I will have to explain this change in policy to Luminosa. It was at her urging that I took this step. She was convinced it was Divine Will. I see now that cannot be, for the Holy Bearer of Burdens would never add so greatly to the pain of the world.”

Regis restrained himself from pointing out that Rinaldo, not the wife of the Terran Legate, was the king. “It might be better to create an advisory council so that in the future, no one person can unduly influence your decisions.”

“Yes, yes, I had thought of that. But she has always seemed so sure, her vision so clear.”

“I’m certain it is . . . to her.”

Rinaldo nodded. “I see your point. You have saved me from a grievous misstep this day. I have missed your counsel recently. You will not fail me again?”

Regis shied away from the reassurance his brother so clearly wanted. “If you will heed my own recommendation, seek out people of wisdom and experience, even if—or especially if—their beliefs and opinions differ from your own. That way, you will be able to choose among the different arguments the one that seems most wise and just.”

Rinaldo agreed this was a good plan, and the brothers parted amicably.

31

Regis could not leave the Castle without reassuring Javanne of the results of his discussion with Rinaldo. He wound his way through the maze of stairs and corridors, passing from one era to another as the architectural styles changed. Once or twice, he was stopped by Castle Guards and asked his business. No one challenged his right to visit his own family. Other than the Guardsmen and a few servants, the halls were empty.

There are too few of us Comyn to lose even a single one.

When Regis arrived at the apartments where Javanne and Gabriel had set up their housekeeping, he found Gabriel sprawled in a chair, staring at nothing in particular. Regis felt a spasm of sadness to see him thus, a man of action forced into idleness.

“Regis!” Astonishment lit Gabriel’s face, immediately coalescing into a frown.

“I heard about Bertram Monterey,” Regis said. “I’m sorry.”

“Regis! Lord of Light, you just disappeared! With no word, nothing! Where in the Nine Hells have you been?”

Regis cast about for an acceptable explanation and failed miserably. “I’m here now.”

“We would have suspected Rinaldo had you killed if Linnea hadn’t been so calm about it. Javanne’s ready to wring your neck the next time she sees you. She went to you for help, and you just left—D o you have any idea what’s been going on? Ariel—”

“Yes, Javanne told me. I’m sorry I couldn’t do anything sooner. Is she about? I have good news.”

“She’s hiding in the linen closet, counting kitchen towels,” Gabriel growled. “That Terrananwoman is everywhere, bossing everyone about. Not that Javanne has the heart to run the Castle now.” Regis had never heard his brother-in-law so downcast.

“As for Bertram Monterey, that rabbithorn!” Gabriel went on. “Rumor has it that he’s placed cristoforoagents in key positions. You don’t know whom to trust.”

He paused, his expression hardening. “I never thought to say this, Regis, but I’d be happy to leave Thendara. I was proud of my work here and even prouder of the cadets I’d trained and the Guardsmen I led. Now that’s all gone. There’s no more honor, not in the Comyn, not anywhere in the city. I’d take Javanne away to Armida tomorrow if we could get Ariel back.”

“It’s not like you to run away from a fight,” Regis said. “If things are as bad as you say, we need all the sane men we have. Ineed you—your experience, your strength. Since Rinaldo has taken Danilo, would you consider acting as my paxman?”

A series of emotions passed over Gabriel’s features. He turned away. “I have no desire to abandon everything the Comyn have stood for, the old ways of respect and decency, but I have my family to protect.”

“As do I.” Regis grasped Gabriel’s shoulder. “My brother is my family, too. Rinaldo is easily led astray by others, but he still listens to me. I can reason with him. We’ll sort this out. Meanwhile, I need a strong man to guard my back, someone I can trust—”

Suddenly the door flew open. Javanne rushed into the room. She wore a gown that had once been green but had faded to gray, covered by a dust-streaked apron. Her hair was tucked beneath a pleated cap. The muscles around her eyes seemed too tight.

“There you are! I heard—” She swung from Regis to confront her husband. “Regis is here and you didn’t send word to me!”

“I came directly from speaking with Rinaldo, and he has agreed to release the children,” Regis broke in.

“Just like that?” Javanne demanded. “When will this miraculous event take place?”

“You doubt my word?”

“Not at all. But I have more than enough reason to doubt Rinaldo’s.”

“Regis, do you know where they are?” Gabriel said. “Somewhere in the Castle? One of those temples? A hovel in the city, one of those areas no sane man walks unarmed? Spirited away to Nevarsin?”

“They could be anywhere!” Javanne threw herself at Regis, hands raised as if she would tear his eyes out. “If it had been Mikhail, your precious Heir, instead of my daughter, you would have saved him! Why are you doing this to me? I hate you! I hate both of you!”

Gabriel caught Javanne in his arms, holding her with surprising gentleness. “Hush, love, you don’t mean that.”

“It’s not fair!” She allowed herself to be led to the divan, where she collapsed, burying her face in her hands. “She is lost, lost! And all you men do is talk! What good is that to my sweet girl?”

Javanne spoke truly. What was Rinaldo’s agreement but empty words?

Regis knelt, but she would not look at him. “ Breda,I swear to you, I will restore your daughter. She is my kin as well.”

“I wish you’d left Rinaldo at Nevarsin!” Javanne wavered on the edge of hysterical tears. “I wish he’d never been born!”

Gabriel rested his hands comfortingly on his wife’s shoulders and said to Regis, “Or that you never had the notion to hand so much power over to someone not trained to handle it.”

“Trained?” Regis shot back. “As Grandfather trained me? I would not wish that on my dearest enemy, let alone my only brother.”

“Who has run amok—”

“Yes, but under the influence of men like Valdir Ridenow!” Regis said. “I admit I failed to prepare him. What else should I have done? Become king myself? That’s absurd!”

“As absurd as Rinaldo doing the same, with far less ability or rightful claim?” Gabriel rumbled. “Gods, Regis! When good men fail to do their duty, tyrants step into the breach. You failed all of us, and now it’s our children who suffer.”

“I told you. I handled that,” Regis protested.

Gabriel stared at him. “I’ll believe it when Ariel is home again.”

Regis repeated, “Rinaldo gave me his word.”

Javanne lifted her tear-streaked face. Her voice, although hoarse, was steady. “And what is that worth without honor?”

“Regis,” Gabriel said, his voice now shading into weariness, “I have always thought well of you. I know you’ve faced down things I can’t imagine. If you can restrain that tyrant of a brother who dares to warm the throne with his backside, so much the better. But you place too much faith in Rinaldo’s willingness to be guided. You think he is without ambition? That is your own modesty speaking. Open your eyes and see what he really is.”

“Grandfather was right: You have never taken this business of governing seriously.” Javanne’s voice regained its former edge. “As a member of the Comyn, you have a responsibility to our people. But it’s not my business to lecture you on your duties.”

“Please do not do so,” Regis said tightly. “Grandfather did nothing else for most of my life.”

“But never in a way that you heeded!” she cried.

“I have done what I can! I am not a god, no matter what the legends say.”

“No,” Gabriel said quietly, “but you are a Hastur lord, which is close enough for most people. Take care to watch your back.”

“That,” Regis said with a meaningful look, “is why I need you.” Gabriel sighed, and for a moment, Regis felt sympathy for the older man’s position. With a wife as sharp-tongued as Javanne, and Javanne at her distraught worst, the decision could not be an easy one.

“You have my voice and my sword,” Gabriel said. “I will not make any formal vows—” meaning those of a paxman, “—but I will help you as best I can.”

Regis reached out to clasp Gabriel’s forearms, a soldierly embrace. Javanne leaned forward to kiss Regis on the cheek. Although she held herself with composure, her body felt as brittle as eggshells.

Regis halted beneath an arched doorway. Before him, a narrow stairway led into shadows, and a corridor angled away to the left. He did not recognize the passageway. What a fine situation for a grown man, Comyn and Hastur, to become lost in his own Castle!

He sat down on the lowest stair and considered what he must do next. His thoughts vacillated between optimism and self-doubt. He tried to cheer himself up, reassuring himself that the fears of his sister and brother-in-law were misplaced. He was making progress with Rinaldo. Soon he would be able to bring Kierestelli home, and all would be well.

All would be well.How many times had he thought that and been wrong?

Gabriel was right, Rinaldo’s excesses were the responsibility of the man who put him into power. It was up to Regis to deal with the results.

Desperately, Regis missed the friendship of men of his own caste. Lew Alton was off-world, along with his only child, Gabriel had turned distant, almost hostile, and Dyan Ardais was dead. Some things he could not say to Linnea, and Danilo . . .

Regis had become accustomed to the aching emptiness in his life. Danilo did not always agree with him, but his advice and the inexpressible comfort of his support had always been there.

He glanced up and knew where he was. All his temporizing and self-justification fell away. He and none other had put Rinaldo into a position of unbridled power. He had closed his eyes to Rinaldo’s obsessions. He had lulled his own conscience with false reassurances. Why should Rinaldo heed anything he, Regis, said?

More than that, he had left his sister’s child and the children of others in the clutches of unscrupulous men while he spirited his own daughter to safety. For too long, he had delayed and made excuses for Rinaldo. He must rescue the children himself.

Only a few moments ago, he had been alone in the endlessly twisting Castle corridors. Now he emerged into the more populated public areas. At every corner, he encountered more courtiers. Some—an Eldrin cousin here, a Castamir or MacNoire there—he knew slightly, but none well enough to trust. All of them wanted some favor, some influence with the king.

Regis strode through the knots of sycophants, ignoring their greetings, and out the Castle gates. As Gabriel had pointed out, the children could be anywhere in the city. Barring interrogating every Guardsman loyal to Rinaldo, there was only one way to find them.

He needed Linnea’s help.

With a sigh, Linnea broke the psychic rapport. Regis blinked, his vision clearing. They had been sitting together, a circle of two, their starstones glittering on the table between them, for what seemed like days. He arched his back, feeling the stiffness in the joints. How did Tower workers concentrate their laranfor hours at a time?

“For one thing, a circle has a monitor to safeguard their well-being,” Linnea said, yawning. Shadows bruised the delicate skin around her eyes.

Regis rubbed the bridge of his nose to ease the ache behind his eye sockets. “Did you sense anything?” Or was this a waste of time?

“Mmmm.” She went to the sideboard and carried back the platter of food she had placed there before they began. Regis had chafed silently at her preparations. Now the smell of nuts dusted with powdered crystallized honey made his mouth water. Linnea was already tearing apart a spiral bun and devouring the morsels. She paused long enough to take a draft of the honeyed wine.

“That’s better,” she said. “Now I can talk without falling over.” Within moments, the worst of the headache eased as the food and sweetened drink replaced the energy Regis had expended.

“To answer your question, I did get a flicker. A taste, as it were. It would have been easier if Ariel’s laranhad awakened, assuming she has any. Her twin sister is already studying at Neskaya?”

“Yes, that would be Liriel.”

Linnea’s brow furrowed. “Odd that one would have so much talent and the other none. I suppose some twins are no more similar than any other siblings. Ariel is still here in the city, I’m sure of that much. She’s not in the Castle or the Old Town. Somewhere in the Trade City, I think.” She wiped her fingertips on a napkin and peered anxiously at Regis. “I wish I knew more, dearest. I’m guessing as it is.”

He touched the back of her wrist lightly and felt the pulse of warmth in her wordless response. “It is more than I had before.” He tried to stand up, found his knees had turned to jelly, and sat down again.

Linnea kept her face grave as she instructed him to rest. “ Laranwork burns tremendous amounts of energy.” Pointedly she looked at the crumbs remaining on the platter. “You’ll be better shortly, but not if you don’t give your body time to recover. An hour now—lying down, if you can—may well spare you the inconvenience of fainting later.”

Although he wanted to begin the search right away, Regis saw the wisdom in Linnea’s argument. He lay down on his own bed. Minutes crept by, and then he sat up with a jerk and realized he’d been sleeping.

Regis pulled on the clothing he had worn for the ride to the Yellow Forest. The shirt and pants were travel-stained despite the best efforts of Merilys to clean them. He slipped on his oldest boots. Their quality was out of keeping with the clothing, but he was not willing to sacrifice comfort, not to mention sure footing, when he had no idea what he might encounter.

Weapons?Regis frowned. All his training urged him to go armed, if only with a dagger. A sword would be better. Would carrying one create more of a risk—of discovery, of unnecessary violence—than a benefit?

Perhaps the Terrans are right and weare savages who resolve our differences by sticking each other with bits of pointed metal.

The world went as it would, and not as men would have it. He could not risk coming up against an armed assailant without a weapon, but he needed freedom of movement. He settled for a dagger, easily concealed beneath his cloak, and a boot knife.

With the hood of his cloak covering his distinctive hair, Regis slipped out the servants’ entrance and down the street. Within a short time, he left the wealthier district. The foot traffic was heavier here, people going about their business in the fair spring weather. No one took any particular notice of him, not even the Guardsmen watching the intersections.

As Regis entered the Trade City, searching for a building that might serve as a “school,” Javanne’s accusation returned with all its sting. He had never taken the time to get to know any of her children except Mikhail. The older sons, Gabriel after his father, and Rafael, he knew only slightly. Both had trained as cadets. He wasn’t sure he would recognize Liriel, the girl who had gone to Neskaya Tower.

As for Ariel herself, he knew what she looked like, a shy, pretty child. But did he really know anything about her?

Ariel . . .

Small shops offered an array of Terran imports, Valeron pottery, and clothing. The area was an uneasy amalgam of the two cultures.

He couldn’t very well knock on doors, asking if anyone had seen a parade of kidnapped children. There was no help for it but to continue up one street and down the next, through the maze of byways and alleys, hoping for a clue. The search would be tedious and methodical, but it was all he could do.

His route took him deeper into the Trade City, past the Street of Four Shadows, where the few licensed matrix mechanics did their business. Here and there, Regis spotted an ale shop, and once he noticed a pair of men, Terrananby their coloring and dress, enter a discreetly marked brothel. He did not like to think of his niece, or any child, in this place.

The street Regis had been following, little more than an alley, twisted and doubled back, paralleling the way he had come. He spotted a broader avenue ahead, and the lacy pattern of trees. Perhaps it led to a residential area.

As Regis neared the opening of the alley, a familiar figure passed by on the intersecting avenue. He drew back, flattening himself against the stone wall, but there was no alarm. He had not been seen. Anxious to not lose his quarry, he crept forward. There she was, walking with a firm stride, her head high.

Tiphani Lawton. Even without her imperious bearing, there could be no mistaking that outlandish costume.

Regis dared not follow too closely. Only a few people were abroad, not enough to hide his presence should she glance back. He tried to move in a casual way, as if he were in no hurry.

A short distance along, Tiphani veered toward a two-storey building. Regis halted a half-block away. From his vantage, the structure looked old but well kept, with a few windows set high in the dark stone walls. The wooden double doors were bound in brass, a luxury for metal-poor Darkover.

Tiphani stopped on the threshold and raised one hand to knock. The door swung open.

Haldred Ridenow stood there.

Tiphani stepped inside. Haldred glanced up and down the street, then shut the door.

Regis proceeded along the street, examining the house as closely as he could without being obvious. He discovered a narrow lane running along the back and far side of the house. While broader than the usual alleys, the lane was hidden from easy view of the street. Even more fortunately, the back wall had not been smooth-finished. Irregularities studded the stone blocks, forming holds for feet and fingers.

A balcony ran along the center third of the building. It looked disused, in poor repair, as did the door to one side and the clouded window. Regis peered up, calculating a route. He had done some mountain-climbing as a youth, but always with ropes and a guide. It occurred to him that he had considerably more experience getting out of tightly locked places than in breaking into them.

About half an hour later, Tiphani Lawton left the building in the direction of Comyn Castle. Regis slipped back into the side passage. He had identified only three ways into the house: the front door, guarded by Haldred, the servants’ entrance, hazards unknown, or the balcony. He might not get a better chance, and any choice was better than standing here like a scarecrow. He folded his cloak over his shoulders to free his arms, grasped the upper edge of a head- high stone, set one foot on the nearest rough patch, and hauled himself upward.

Inch by painful inch, Regis climbed. He moved one hand, digging his fingers into the crevices of the rock. His feet found tiny, almost invisible ledges. He forced himself to test each hold before committing his weight to it. A fall would—no, he must not even think of it. Within a few heartbeats, he was sweating. Silently he cursed himself for not keeping more fit. His shoulders throbbed, and his hands were already scraped raw in half a dozen places.

Halfway up the wall, Regis froze at the muted sound of men’s voices below him. The words were indistinct, yet they seemed to be coming closer. He felt naked, vulnerable, his hold on the wall fragile. One glance would brand him as would-be thief, suspended halfway up the back of a residence, where no honest man had any business. He was now too high to jump down without injury.

A moment later, the voices receded. The walls of the lane had carried and amplified the sound. Regis took a trembling breath and continued upward.

The final part of the climb lasted only a few minutes, but it felt like an eon before Regis reached the balcony. Wooden slats, many of them weathered into splinters, made up the floor. With difficulty, he shuffled to the side where the framing looked more sound. As he grasped the likeliest of the beams, the foot bearing most of his weight lost traction. Boot leather skidded over stone, the noise alarmingly loud.

Suddenly his entire weight hung from one hand. Fire shot through his shoulder as ligaments and muscles stretched under the shock. Somehow he held on.

Panting, Regis grabbed the beam with his free hand. His feet, which had been flailing wildly, slammed into solid wall and held. He inhaled sharply, then pushed with his legs as he pulled with his arms. He might not be as fit as he’d been as a cadet, but he didn’t weigh much more.

The burst of effort raised his body enough so that he could hook one elbow over the edge of the beam. From there, he dragged himself up.

The balcony was in even worse shape than he’d feared. It was by Zandru’s own luck that it hadn’t collapsed, plummeting him to the ground. As it was, he found several splinters among the abrasions on his palms.

“Who? Who’s there?” The words in halting castacame from inside the door. The voice was a child’s.

“It’s all right,” Regis said, keeping his voice low and soothing. “I won’t hurt you.”

“Have you come to take me home?”

Regis smiled, although the child, a boy he thought, could not see. “Yes. Now stand back from the door.”

Bracing himself, Regis inspected the door. It was weathered, although still sound enough to keep out the elements. The lock was cheap, but it held when he leaned his weight into the door. The frame, however, was warped, spongy in places. The wood was not only weakened by the elements but most likely rotted as well. Regis studied the door frame and the beam on which he perched. He might choose wrongly and go crashing down or attract attention from within the house, but he must take that chance.

He selected his target, just below the level of the latch, braced himself on the soundest part of the railing, and landed a hard, percussive kick. From inside came a smothered shriek. The door flexed under the blow, but the frame fractured in places into powdery fragments. Regis closed his eyes and delivered a silent prayer to whatever god looked out for chivalric fools. Then he reached inside. His fingers found the lock.

“You can’t open it that way,” said the boy. “I’ve tried.”

Of course, the door would be locked to prevent escape, not entry. A second kick, although not as well-placed as the first, weakened the door frame further. The third landed dead-on with all the power he could muster. The door tilted open, hanging on its hinges.

Regis pushed his way through the opening. The room beyond was comfortless and chill, the meager fireplace bare, the only furnishings two narrow beds and a chair.

On one of those beds, with its stained straw pallet, Felix Lawton sat bolt upright.

32

With an inarticulate cry, Felix Lawton rushed forward. Regis caught him and held him close. Silent, barely suppressed sobs racked the boy’s body. Felix was thinner than Regis remembered, his muscles taut. He was trembling too badly to form coherent words. For a moment, Regis feared the boy’s starstone had been taken from him, but the boy’s laran,although turbulent with terror and relief, was steady.

Regis stroked the boy’s hair, lank with grime. Felix’s cheek was clammy, as if he were on the verge of shock.

This could be any child. This could bemy child.

I’m here,Regis sent a pulse of mental reassurance. It’s all right. You’re not alone.

Felix looked up, his eyes red- rimmed but dry. “I didn’t think anyone knew where I was.”

Or,Regis caught the boy’s thought, that anyone would look for me.

Felix added, “I was an idiot to believe my mother when she said she had a surprise for me. I thought maybe she missed me—she’s been over at the Castle every moment she isn’t fighting with Father. I never thought she’d—she’d—”

“How long have you been here? The others—there areother children here, aren’t there? Have you seen them?”

Felix lowered himself to the bed. “It’s been a couple of days, but I can’t be sure. She made me drink this awful stuff. Drugged, of course.” He let out a bitter cough of a laugh. “I—I heard voices, and someone crying. A girl. I don’t think I imagined it.” He paused and they both listened. “What happens now?”

“Now,” Regis answered with a ghost of a smile, “we get you out of here.”

Felix glanced toward the splintered wooden debris where Regis had wrenched the door aside.

Regis shook his head. “I don’t think we can manage that way. Not without a rope.” Felix’s captors had left him neither blanket nor anything else that might be used to escape, except his own clothing. “Besides,” Regis added, “I’ll need your help with the others. Are you with me?”

Felix straightened his shoulders and nodded.

“Come on, then.”

As Regis had expected, the latch had no lock. Darkovans did not lock their doors within their own homes. Instead, a bar had been installed on the outside. Regis took out his dagger and maneuvered the slender blade through the gap between the door and its framing. It took several attempts to lever the bar free. When he succeeded, the bar clattered to the floor outside.

Regis and Felix held still, barely breathing, listening for sounds of alarm. The last echoes of the bar falling died into silence. Gesturing for Felix to stay back, Regis lifted the latch. The door opened with a creak.

A corridor ran the length of the house, lined on either side with closed doors. Each door, like Felix’s, had been fitted on the outside with a bar. A window of cloudy, poor-quality glass admitted a diffuse light at the far end. The floor was bare wood. Once, it must have been very fine, but age and lack of care had dulled its luster. An arched opening midway along one wall led to a staircase going down.

Regis moved silently to the nearest door. There was no response when he tapped. The bar slipped easily from its brackets. The room, very much like Felix’s with bare pallets on simple frame beds, a single rickety chair and little else, was empty. There was no sign of food or water. When Regis asked Felix how long it had been since he’d eaten, Felix shrugged.

The next two rooms were empty but in use, from the rumpled ticking on the pallets. A sense of urgency grew in Regis. The longer they delayed, the greater the chance of discovery. Tiphani might have gone, but Haldred was still in the house.

“Downstairs, maybe?” Felix whispered.

“Let’s go, then. Stay behind me. We don’t know what’s down there, but in case it’s trouble . . .” Regis touched the hilt of his dagger.

Felix flashed Regis a crooked grin. Clearly, having a course of action steadied the youngster.

Keeping to one wall, Regis led the way down the stairs. As they stepped on to the landing and changed directions, muffled sounds wafted upwards. Children’s voices rose and fell in unison, although Regis could not make out their words.

They descended another few stairs. The ground floor came into view. There were no bedrooms here, only a wide hall tiled in faded mosaics, a smaller door that must lead to a parlor or formal dining room, and there, at the far end, a set of double exterior doors. Carvings swirled across the dark wood like frozen shadows.

Regis slipped his dagger free. There was no sign of Haldred or anyone else, but he could not tell how long their luck would hold. He glanced back at Felix and lifted one finger of his free hand to his lips. Felix nodded, eyes huge and somber.

With only a whisper of footsteps, they crept down the remaining stairs. Felix might not have had cadet training, but he carried himself well.

The sounds of the children grew louder, then stopped. Regis froze. A man’s voice took over, in that same rhythmic cadence. Regis recognized a devotional chant from Nevarsin.

The hallway was still clear, but they were exposed, with nowhere to hide or run. Regis motioned Felix to stay close as he hurried across the mosaic floor. Before he could reach the double doors, however, the side door opened. Regis spun around just as a man, dour-faced and broad of shoulder, entered the hall.

Haldred Ridenow.

Haldred hesitated, caught momentarily off-guard. Dagger in hand, Regis moved into the lapse. Haldred was already reaching for his sword when Regis closed with him, dagger aimed for his throat. Haldred yelped, his voice echoing in the near-empty hall, and jumped back.

Regis followed closely, circling. With his free hand, he grabbed Haldred’s wrist and twisted hard. In a fluid, circular movement, Regis spun Haldred around. Haldred staggered, but Regis held his arm twisted behind his back so tightly that their joined hands were almost at the level of Haldred’s shoulder blades. Regis knew from experience that even a little more leverage would produce excruciating pain. He laid the edge of the dagger, less sharp than its point but effective nonetheless, against Haldred’s neck.

Gasping, Haldred managed to hold still. “What—what are you doing here?” he muttered through clenched teeth.

“Rescuing the Legate’s son. My niece. A few others. You’ll know them, I expect.” Regis nudged Haldred toward the double doors. “In there, are they?”

“You’ll never get away with this!”

“Who taught you to talk like that? Valdir?”

“That weakling!” Haldred struggled, then gasped in pain.

“Do that again, and I’ll slice your throat,” Regis hissed. “Felix, can you open the doors? Good. Then you and I, Haldred, are going through them slowly. Do you understand me?”

Haldred gulped noisily. Regis took the movement for assent.

Felix shoved the doors open. Regis half prodded, half dragged Haldred through the opening. The room was spacious and bright, its windows of unblemished glass. A fireplace of chalky stone held a small fire. The chamber had been designed for elegance as well as comfort and might have once been used for dances. Now rows of benches filled the center, all facing a freestanding altar.

A man in sandals and a brown cristofororobe stood with his back to the blaze, absorbing its warmth. He was short and balding, well-padded around the middle.

A handful of children in sacks of brown cloth huddled on the benches. Their feet were bare and their eyes dull. Regis spotted Ariel among them. Several had the bright red hair of the Comyn.

“Savage!” the priest screamed. “How dare you disturb us—or carry weapons into this place of holy learning! Sacrilege, I say!”

Regis had neither the time nor the temper to answer. “All of you,” he called to the children, “we’re taking you home! Felix, get them together—”

His next words were cut off by the clamor of men’s voices and booted feet over tile. Two men armed with swords pelted down the hallway. From his vantage, Regis could not see if they had come from outside or elsewhere in the house. One or two of the children shrieked. The others whimpered and clung to one another.

Regis whirled Haldred around so that the newcomers could see the dagger. “Stop there or he dies!”

One of the men scowled, ready for a fight. Regis wasn’t sure he could carry through his threat, or what he might do against three swordsmen with just his dagger. He couldn’t risk Felix, and the children on the benches looked too intimidated to move on their own.

The second man raised his hands well away from his weapon. “It’s Lord Regis . . .”

“Get back, both of you!” Regis barked.

“You men, why are you standing there?” the priest demanded. “Do your duty! Seize the intruder!”

Regis ignored him, keeping his eyes on the two swordsmen. “We’re going to move very carefully toward the street. All of us. Do you understand?”

Both men nodded, the first more reluctantly. The priest made incoherent mutters of protest. From his peripheral vision, Regis caught the expression on Felix’s face and it heartened him.

“Good,” he said. “Then you’ll oblige me by taking off your sword belts and laying them on the floor.” They did so and backed away at his command.

“Stop!” yelled the priest. “Where are you going with those students?”

“I’m taking them back to their families.”

Felix helped the smaller children to their feet and ushered them toward the hallway. A few went willingly, but others cowered on their benches. Ariel was one of those too frightened to move or apparently to comprehend what was happening. The priest took a step to block their passage, but Regis warned him back.

Half the children had crossed the hallway when the outer doors flew open.

“Spaceforce! Freeze!” The words blared out in accented, mechanically amplified casta.

The next instant, half a dozen men in the black leather uniforms of the Terrananpolice rushed through the doors. They moved like hunters closing on the kill, swift and powerful, focused.

They all carried blasters.

Stung beyond reason by this blatant violation of the Compact, Regis cursed aloud.

Haldred took advantage of the momentary lapse and wrenched free. He stumbled, fell, and caught himself on hands and one knee.

Pandemonium erupted in the hallway. Black-clad Terrans seemed to be everywhere. Their shouts reverberated, distorted by echoes. The children who were already in the hall panicked and darted this way and that. One of the girls started screaming like a banshee.

Haldred lurched to his feet. He shouted out orders to the two swordsmen. For the first time, Regis saw the blood smearing Haldred’s throat. The wound did not look deep, but there was enough blood to terrify the children. It must have happened when Haldred struggled free.

One of the guards, the one who had recognized Regis, reached for his dropped sword. Blaster fire, silent and swift, caught him. He screamed and toppled over. Steel rattled over tile as the sword fell from his hand.

Yelling, the priest tried to herd the children back into the school room.

The second Darkovan guard snatched up his weapon. Wild-eyed, he lunged at the nearest Spaceforce man. Too late, the Terran’s head whipped around. The sword edge cut through leather, then snagged on bone. The Terran’s knees folded under him.

The Darkovan rushed in, jerking his sword free for a killing stroke. A blast beam sliced across his belly. He stiffened, head thrown back, mouth gaping, and toppled to the floor. The stench of charred flesh filled the air.

“Enough!” Regis bellowed. “Stop!”

The next moment, Haldred grabbed the dagger with one hand. The two men wrestled for control of the weapon. Regis reeled as Haldred’s other fist slammed into his jaw. His vision fractured, but he managed to hold on to the hilt.

Without releasing the dagger, Regis swiveled and lashed out with a circular kick. The blow was badly aimed, with little power behind it. The toe of his boot struck the side of Haldred’s thigh, hard enough to hurt but not disable.

Grunting with pain, Haldred tried to pull free. Regis clamped his hand over Haldred’s, anchoring it to the hilt. All he could think was that with Haldred out of action, the Terrans would break off their assault. There would be a chance for parley and an end to the killing.

“Filthy nine-fathered ombredin!” Haldred counterattacked, pummeling Regis with his free fist. At the same time, he jerked and twisted their joined hands.

Slippery with sweat, the hold broke. Haldred grabbed the dagger in both hands and lunged at Regis. Regis jumped back, barely in time. The tip caught a fold of his cloak but missed his skin.

Felix rushed toward the fallen Terran, calling out the man’s name. Regis shouted out a warning, but he could not reach the boy. Haldred blocked the way.

As Felix crossed in front of Haldred, the Darkovan grabbed him. A quick, savage move spun the boy around and pinned him against Haldred’s torso, facing away. Haldred’s forearm squeezed tight against Felix’s throat. With his other hand, Haldred jammed the tip of the dagger just below the boy’s ear.

Not my own dagger!

“Drop your weapons or he dies!” Haldred’s hoarse shout rang out.

As if in a dream, Regis saw the Terran commander turn toward them. Saw the blaster swing up in a move too quick for thought.

Acting by instinct, Regis hurled himself at Haldred. He grappled the other man around the hips. The impetus of the blow broke Haldred’s balance. They went down, slamming into the tile floor, rolling, flailing, Haldred yelling.

The next few moments blurred in a tangle of arms and legs, shouted orders in a Terranandialect, then a silence and a sudden, dense weight. Regis tried to free himself, but Haldred was too heavy. He shoved and twisted, fighting for leverage.

With a wordless shout, Regis pushed again. The weight lifted as Haldred’s body rolled aside.

Dazed, Regis pushed himself up on one elbow. Two of the Spaceforce men dragged Haldred away, one by either arm. The blaster had sliced Haldred’s torso from one shoulder to the opposite hip. Layers of fabric had crisped away to reveal a blackened, gaping cavity. Exposed vertebrae gleamed wetly at the back of the wound. Regis gulped, his guts clenching. No living creature could have survived such an injury.

The Terran commander knelt beside Felix. The boy’s head lolled to one side, one arm flung out limp and graceless. He wasn’t moving, wasn’t breathing.

Blood pooled beneath his body.

“Oh, god,” one of the Terrans babbled, “ohgodohgodohgod.”

Regis crawled over and touched one shoulder, rolling Felix toward him. Blood smeared one side of the boy’s neck and chest.

The hilt of the dagger stuck out below his ribs.

Regis jerked the front of Felix’s shirt open. His fingers closed around the cord and then the silken bag. He hesitated only for an instant before opening the drawstring.

Thrusting his fingers between the layers of soft insulating fabric, Regis felt the hard crystalline shape. He watched Felix’s face for any hint of change.

No reaction.

No movement, no fleeting expression of shock or pain. Nothing.

A moment, a blink, and we are dust . . .

Lord of Light, what could he say to Dan? Sorrywas so pale and futile a word.

And none of this would have happened had he, Regis, not been so weak as to allow Rinaldo the throne . . . Tiphani taking her own son to be indoctrinated . . . the predictable incursion of the Federation forces . . .

Sick at heart, Regis drew out the psychoactive gem. The starstone was warm from contact with the boy’s body. A pale flicker like the dying echo of fire still danced in its depths.

“No pulse!” the commander blurted. Someone else said, “He’s not breathing,” and another, “—can’t resuss—dagger too close to the heart—pull it out, might kill him—”

The commander barked: “Medics here, stat!”

“—never arrive in time—”

Regis blotted out the voices, the hovering figures. The only thing that mattered was that twist of brightness.

If Linnea were here—or even the most novice monitor—she would know what to do, how to start the boy’s heart and lungs. Regis had no training in such techniques, no way to reach anyone who did.

I cannot do this.

I cannot let him die.

Words reverberated through his mind: Light calls to Light.

Memory thundered through him, how he had opened himself—offered himself—to the power that men called the Lord of Light.

And something had answered, had filled him, flowed through him, usedhim to defeat Sharra.

Regis pressed the starstone against Felix’s red-streaked chest. Head bent, eyes closed in concentration, Regis shaped his thoughts into a prayer.

Save him . . . take my strength, use my Gift. Aldones, father of my fathers . . . let my life pass into this child . . .

Regis felt a quickening, a flicker of electric energy, in the stone under his hand. His fingers were sticky with Felix’s blood—blood as carrier of life—blood as conductor and amplifier of power . . .

And then he had no more words, only, Please, please. . .

Power answered. It rang like a crystalline bell in his mind, faintly at first, then louder. Time slowed. Between one breath and the next, the resonant clangor grew until it drove away all other awareness. The sound was beautiful past bearing and more terrible than night. It flooded him, jarred him from his moorings, shredded all resistance.

He had become a single vibrating crystal: the Hastur Gift, the living matrix.

He could shape, direct, use this power as he wished. Or he could let himself be shaped and used by it. With it, he could stride like a god across the face of the world, blasting away all who stood against him. He could remake whole planets to his own desire.

Between his hands, the boy’s life force guttered.

He did not know what to do. He let go—

Light surged through him. He no longer grasped it; he shrank to a speck in an ocean of blue-white brilliance. Knowing it would burn him up like tinder, he gave himself to the light.

Without sight or hearing, he sensed patterns within the effulgence. A form coalesced, at first only a tracery, a suggestion of lines of force. Then details emerged . . . the metallic signature of a long, slender object, the resonances of liquids, gelatinous cells bright with renewed life-energy . . .

As if the boy’s body had turned to glass, Regis made out the dagger as it sat, nested in torn and punctured tissues, the tip almost touching the heart, the severed blood vessels, the nerves still paralyzed by shock.

Live . . .

Power reached through him, not his own will but something deep and sure. An invisible spark propagated through the muscles of the heart. At the same time, the edges of the arteries clamped down. The blood-filled space between the dagger and the pericardial sac took on a new, elastic density, holding the blade in place.

The heart chambers contracted, the first beat rough, but the next smooth and strong, rippling from top to bottom. Blood pounded through the major vessels. The diaphragm shuddered, then clenched under a cascade of nerve signals.

The light faded. Regis dropped into his own body, at once too hot and too cold, too solid and too fragile.

Beneath his palms, Felix’s chest rose in a heaving breath.

Rough hands hauled Regis to his feet. He began to protest, then realized these men had no idea what had just happened. The Terrans saw him as one of the hostage takers, in league with Haldred. Still caught in a maelstrom of grief and guilt and the exhilaration of the healing, he tried and failed to summon words.

“I’ve got a pulse!” The man kneeling on the other side of Felix looked up with an expression of astonishment.

Felix groaned and feebly lifted one arm.

“Lie still, son,” the commander said. “Help’s on the way.”

“Sir? What about this one?” asked one of the men holding Regis.

“Let him go,” the commander answered, his voice thick. “He’s not with—Sweet heavens, it’s Lord Hastur.” He got to his feet, brisk and efficient, and confronted Regis. “What in blazes are youdoing here?”

Regis glared back. Outrage flared, fueling his words. “Trying to rescue these children. Which I would have done without bloodshed if you had not come barging in. You are in direct violation of the Compact and, need I add, of Federation policy.”

“You savages! Do you think you can kidnap the Legate’s son, a Federation citizen, with impunity? That we would sit back and do nothing? It’s a miracle the kid’s still alive!” And he still might not make it.

Shaking off the grip of the two Spaceforce men, Regis drew himself up. He had not contradicted the commander’s use of the title, Lord Hastur. It was time he took back those responsibilities as well.

“There will be consequences,” Regis promised, “to the ones responsible for this outrage. But your presence here, your disregard for local sovereignty is not only illegal but inflammatory. It will be seen as an act of aggression, an abrogation of all we have worked to achieve between our two worlds.”

“When the safety of a Federation citizen is at risk, we have the right—”

“You have the right to ask Darkovan authorities for assistance, but you do nothave the right to single- handedly start a war! Is that what you want? Have you forgotten recent history? Do you think we are such backward savages,” Regis deliberately echoed the words of the Spaceforce man, “that we have no means to defend ourselves? Have you so quickly blotted out how the spaceport at Caer Donn was destroyed?”

The commander blanched.

“I will see to it those Darkovans responsible for this tragedy are held accountable,” Regis continued, more quietly now. “What you must do is remove your men and their weapons as quickly as possible.”

Just then, a trio in the uniforms of the Terran Medical Corps pelted into the foyer. Regis had no idea how they had arrived so fast. The commander directed them first to Felix, then to the other wounded. They set about examining the boy with their instruments. Regis did not understand a fraction of what they did, only that they meant to stabilize him for transport.

“He’s a lucky kid,” the head medic told the commander. His gaze flickered to Regis in his gore-stained shirt. He added in Terran Standard, “What about that one? He looks like one of the local aristocrats.”

“It’s not my blood,” Regis answered in the same language.

A few minutes later, the medics had brought in a rigid carrier for Felix and secured him to it. Regis approached the head medic. “Tell Dan—” his voice caught, then held firm, “tell the Legate how very sorry I am.”

“Nothing—to be sorry—” Felix stumbled, before the medics maneuvered his carrier through the doors.

“And these?” The commander indicated Haldred and his two comrades. One of them was still alive, huddled on the floor while a medic applied an anesthetic spray.

“If you’re willing to treat him, it would be seen as a gesture of goodwill,” Regis conceded. “As for him,” with a nod toward Haldred’s corpse, “I’ll inform his family.”

“With your permission, I’ll transport the bodies back to HQ. This will require an internal investigation. We will treat the remains with respect, and the families can claim them as soon as the forensic reports are done.”

Regis was in no mood to dispute such a sound plan.

With practiced efficiency, the Spaceforce team took charge of the wounded and the dead. Regis turned to the priest and issued a string of orders regarding the children. The cristoforo,visibly shaken by the turn of events, obeyed meekly. Soon nothing remained of the fight except bloodstains and the reek of charred flesh.

The Terran commander paused at the outer door. “I’m taking a big risk in trusting you to keep your word. How do I know you’ll punish those responsible? That you won’t exonerate them because they’re your own people?”

Regis glared at the man. “I have said it. I am Hastur.”

There it was, his word an unbreakable promise. It was a burden he would bear for all his days.

Something in his tone, his bearing, or perhaps his eyes, reached the Terran. The commander lowered his own gaze, nodded, and retreated back into the street.

Regis held out his hand to Ariel. She stared at him, eyes white-rimmed, mouth set in a tight line. Slowly she slipped her chill fingers into his. Now that the last traces of power had drained from him, Regis felt lightheaded, as if his bones belonged to someone else. He could not rest, not yet.

He lifted his gaze to the waiting children. “Come, little ones. It’s time to go home.”

33

They looked like a bunch of refugees, some of the children barefoot, others wrapped in oversized cloaks from the storerooms. Regis had worried about how the younger ones were going to walk all the way back to the Castle, but before long, he was able to hail a wagon half-filled with bales of unspun wool. The driver, an elderly, leather-skinned man, said it was no burden to his team to carry such little ones. He lifted the children one by one to perch on the soft bales. The younger ones giggled, as if this were a fine adventure. Ariel huddled beside Regis, clutching his hand.

When they arrived at the Castle gates, Regis dispatched a Guardsman to fetch Javanne. He dared not trust anyone else with the children, for fear of turning them over to Rinaldo’s agents.

A few minutes later, when the children were still clambering down from the wagon and thanking the driver, Javanne burst through the gate. Gabriel followed close behind. Ariel gave a piercing cry. Regis lifted the girl from the wagon and into her mother’s arms. Javanne pressed her daughter close, rocking her with exclamations of relief.

Gabriel caught Regis in a kinsman’s embrace. “You did it! I truly did not believe you could—but you freed them!”

“All is not well,” Regis said somberly. “The Legate’s son is badly injured and Haldred Ridenow—I’m afraid he’s dead. And a couple of other men, I don’t know their names.”

“Zandru’s demons! What happened?” Gabriel fixed on the blood-stained shirt. “Are you hurt?”

Shaking his head, Regis glanced toward the children, now clustered around Javanne. She’d put Ariel down and was herding the others together, clucking over their thinness and pallor like a mother barnfowl.