Sharra's Exile

So would I, sir. If I were in charge, you’d have it. But I’m not, and Grandfather doesn’t feel that way. Regis realized suddenly that he was ashamed of his grandfather’s views. They had indeed sworn to a certain amount of cooperation with the Terrans, many times over the past years; more especially after the epidemic in which the Terran Medic division had sent an expert to assist them. But now Kennard, who had started this kind of cooperation, was dead, and it seemed the informal alliance was falling apart; Regis wished Lawton had enough laran so that he need not explain all this, through the slow and clumsy medium of words.

He said, fumbling, “It’s—it’s not a good time to ask for that, Mr. Lawton. It would take a lot of arranging. We’ll deal with Kadarin if we find him, and I assume you will if you catch him here. But this is not the time to ask for formal cooperation between the Guard and Spaceforce. The important thing is to catch that man Kadarin and deal with him— not argue about whose jurisdiction he should be under.”

Lawton struck the desk before him with an angry fist. “And while we argue about it, he’s laughing at both of us,” he said. “Listen here. A few days ago, the Orphanage in the Trade City was broken into, and a child’s room was entered. No child was hurt, no one was kidnapped, but the children in that dormitory had a dreadful fright, and they described the man to Spaceforce—and it seems likely that Kadarin was the one. We don’t know what he was doing there, but he managed to escape again, and he’s probably hiding out in the Old Town. And now I’ve heard that Beltran of Aldaran has brought an army down to Thendara—”

This was Comyn business; Regis had no wish to argue it with a Terran, however friendly. He said somewhat stiffly, “Even as we stand here, sir, Lord Aldaran is making a solemn oath to observe Compact, and giving up all his Terran weapons. I know that old Kermiac of Aldaran was a Terran ally, but I believe Beltran feels otherwise.”

“But it was Beltran, not Kermiac, who managed to burn the spaceport at Caer Donn, and half of the town with it,” Lawton said. “How do we know that Beltran hasn’t brought his men here to join Kadarin, and try some such trick on the Thendara spaceport? I tell you, we have to find Kadarin before that gets out of hand again. You probably don’t realize that the Empire has sovereign authority over all its colonies where there’s a threat to a spaceport; they’re not under local authority at all, but under the interplanetary authority of the Senate. You people have no Senate representation, but you are a Terran colony and I do have the authority to send Spaceforce in—”

This sounds like what Lerrys was saying. Regis said, “If you ever want good relations with Comyn Council, Lawton, I wouldn’t advise it. Spaceforce quartered in the Old Town would be looked upon as—”

As an act of war. Darkover, with swords and the Guardsmen, to fight the interplanetary majesty of the Empire?

“Why do you think I am telling you this?” Lawton asked, with a touch of impatience, and Regis wondered if indeed the man had read his thoughts. “We have to find Kadarin! We could arrest Beltran and call him in for questioning. I have the authority to fill your whole damned city with Terran Intelligence and Spaceforce so that Kadarin would have as much chance as a lighted match on a glacier!” He sounded angry. “I need some cooperation or I’ll have to do exactly that; one of my jobs is to see that Thendara doesn’t go the way of Caer Donn!”

“The agreement whereby you respect the local government—”

“But if the local government is harboring a dangerous criminal, I’ll have to override your precious Council! Don’t you understand? This is an Empire planet! We’ve given you a lot of leeway; it’s Empire policy to let local governments have their head, as long as they don’t damage interplanetary matters. But among other things, I am responsible for the safety of the Spaceport!”

Regis said angrily, “Are you accusing us of harboring Kadarin? We have a price on his life too.”

“You have been remarkably ineffective in finding him,” Lawton said. “I’m under pressure too, Regis; I’m trying to hold out against my superiors, who can’t imagine why I’m humoring your Council this way with Kadarin at large, and—” he hesitated, “Sharra.”

So you too know what Sharra’s flames can do—

Lawton sounded angry. “I’m doing my best, Lord Regis, but my back’s to the wall. I’m under just as much pressure as you are. If you want us to stay on our side of the wall, find us Kadarin, and turn him over to us, and we’ll hold off. Otherwise—I won’t have a choice. If I refuse to handle it, they’ll simply transfer me out, and someone else will do it—someone without half the stake I have in keeping this world peaceful.” He drew a long breath. “Sorry; I didn’t mean to imply that any of this was your fault, or even that you could do anything about it. But if you have any influence with anyone in the Council, you’d better tell them about it. I’ll send someone to show you the way to Captain Scott’s quarters.”

Rafe’s voice said a careless “Come in,” as Regis knocked; as he entered, Rafe started up from his chair. “Regis!” Then he broke off. “Forgive me. Lord Hastur—”

“Regis will do, Rafe,” Regis said. After all, they had been boys together. “And forget that formal little speech about why am I honoring your house.” A grin flickered on Rafe’s face, and he gestured Regis to a seat. Regis took it, looking about him curiously; in his many visits to the Terran Zone he had never before been inside a private dwelling, but only in public places. To him the furniture seemed coarse, ill-made and badly arranged, comfortless. Of course, these were the bachelor quarters of an unmarried man, without servants or much that was permanent.

“May I offer you refreshment, Regis? Wine? A fruit drink?”

“It’s too early for wine,” Regis said, but realized that he was thirsty from all the talking he had been doing with the Legate. Rafe went to a console, touched controls; a cup of some white smooth artificial material materialized and a stream of pale-gold liquid trickled into it. Rafe handed him the cup, materialized and filled another for himself. He came back and took a seat.

Regis said, sipping at the cool, tart liquid, “I have seen what happened to your matrix. I—” suddenly he did not have the faintest idea how he was going to say this.

“I have discovered—almost by accident—” he fumbled, “that I have some—some curious power over—not over Sharra, just over—matrixes which have been—contaminated—by Sharra. Will you let me try it with yours?”

Rafe made a wry face, “I came here so that I could forget about that,” he said. “It seems strange to hear talk of matrixes here.” He gestured to the bare plastic room.

“You may not be as safe as you think,” Regis warned him soberly, “Kadarin has been seen in the Terran Zone.”

“Where?” Rafe demanded. When Regis told him, he leaned back in his chair, white as death. “I know what he wanted. I must see Lew—” and stopped dead. He fumbled for the matrix round his neck; unwrapped it. He held it out quietly on the palm of his hand. Regis looked fixedly at it, and saw it begin to flame and glow with that frightening evocation, the Form of Fire in both their minds, the reek and terror of a city in flames…

He tried to summon memory of what he had done with Javanne’s matrix; found himself, after a brief struggle, wresting the Form of Fire slowly into a shadow, to nothing, a shred…

The matrix stared, blue and innocent, back at them. Rafe drew a noisy breath, color coming slowly into his face again.

“How did you do that?” he demanded.

That was, Regis thought with detachment, an excellent question. It was a pity he did not have an equally excellent answer. “I don’t know. It may have something to do with the Hastur Gift—whatever that is. I suggest you try to use it.”

Rafe looked scared. “I haven’t been able to—even to try— since—” but he did take the crystal between his hands. After a moment a cold globe of light appeared over his joined hands, floated slowly about the room, vanished. He sighed, again. “It seems to be—free—”

Now, perhaps, I can face Lew and do that…

Rafe’s eyes widened as he looked at Regis. He whispered, “Son of Hastur—” and bowed, an archaic gesture, bending almost to the ground.

Regis said impatiently, “Never mind that! What is it that you know about Kadarin?”

“I can’t tell you now.” Rafe seemed to be struggling between that archaic reverence and a perfectly ordinary exasperation. “I swear I can’t; it’s something I have to tell Lew first. It—” he hesitated. “It wouldn’t be honorable or right. Do you command me to tell you, Lord Hastur?”

“Of course not,” said Regis, scowling, “but I wish you’d tell me what you’re talking about.”

“I can’t. I have to go—” he stopped and sighed. Then he said, “Beltran is in the city. I do not want to encounter him. May I come to Comyn Castle? I promise, I will explain everything then. It is a—” again the hesitation. “A family matter. Will you ask Lew Alton to meet me in his quarters in the Castle? He—he may not want to see me. I was part of that— part of the Sharra rebellion. But I was his brother’s friend, too. Ask him, for Marius’s sake, if he will speak with me.”

“I’ll ask him,” Regis said, but he felt more puzzled than ever.

When he left the Terran Zone, the Guardsman at his heels drew diffidently level with him and said, “May I ask you a question, Lord Regis?”

“Ask,” Regis said, again annoyed at the archaic deference. I was a cadet under this man; he was an experienced officer when I was still putting the chin-strap on the cinch-ring! Why should he have to ask permission to speak to me?

“Sir, what’s going on in the city? They called all the Guards out for some kind of ceremony—”

Abruptly, Regis remembered; his errand in the Terran Zone had kept him away, and yet this might be called one of the most important days in the history of the Domains. The Seventh Domain of Aldaran was about to be restored with full ceremony to Comyn, and in token of that Beltran was to swear to Compact… he should have been there. Not that he trusted Beltran to observe any oath one moment longer than it was to his advantage to do so!

He said, “We’ll go to the city wall; at least you’ll see part of it from there.”

“Thank you, my lord,” the Guard said deferentially.

Inside the city wall there were stairs, so that they could walk atop the broad wall, past posted guards, each of whom saluted Regis as he passed. Spread out below them, he could see the men in Aldaran’s so-called Honor Guard. There must be hundreds of them, he thought, it is really an army, enough army to storm the walls of Thendara…he left nothing to our good will.

In a little knot at the head of them, he could see Beltran, and a number of brightly clad cloaked figures; Comyn lords, come to witness this ceremony. Without realizing he was doing it, Regis enhanced his sight with laran, and suddenly it was as if he stood within a few feet of his grandfather, spare and upright in the blue and silver ceremonial cloak of the Hasturs. Edric of Serrais was there too, and Lord Dyan of Ardais, and Prince Derik, and Merryl; and Danilo at Dyan’s side, the two dressed identically in the ceremonials of Ardais; and Merryl in the gray and crimson of Aillards, attending Callina, who stood slightly apart from them, enfolded in her gray cloudy wrap, her face partially veiled as befitted a Comyn lady among strangers.

One by one Beltran’s men were coming up, laying down their Terran blasters before Lady Callina, kneeling and pronouncing the brief formula dating back to the days of King Carolin of Hali, when the Compact had been devised; that no man should bear a weapon beyond the arm’s reach of him who wielded it, so that any man who would kill must dare his own death— Callina looked cold and cross.

“Can’t we go a bit nearer, sir? I can’t see or hear ’em,” the Guardsman asked.

Regis replied, “Go, if you like; I can see well enough from here.” His voice was absentminded; he himself was down there, a few steps from Callina. He could sense her inner raging; she was only a pawn in this, and like Regis, she was at the mercy of Comyn Council, without power to rebel even as effectively as Regis could do.

Regis had protested once, long ago, that the path was carved deep for a Comyn son, a path he must walk whether he wished or no… stronger yet were the forces binding Comyn daughters. He must have thought this more strongly than he realized, for he saw Callina turn her head a little and look, puzzled, at the spot where Regis felt himself to be and, not seeing him, frown a little, but he followed her thoughts: Ashara would protect me, but her price is too high… I do not want to be her pawn…

The ceremony seemed endless; no doubt Beltran had structured it that way, so that the Comyn witnesses might witness his strength. There was a high heap of Terran weapons, blasters and nerve guns, at Callina’s feet. What in Aldones’s name, does Beltran think we are going to do with them? Hand them over to the Terrans? For all we know, he might have as many more in Aldaran itself!

Beltran has made a demonstration of strength. He hopes to impress us. Now we need some counter-demonstration, so that he need not go away thinking that he has done what we had not the power to make him do…

His eyes met the eyes of Dyan Ardais. Dyan turned, looking up at the distant spot on the wall where Regis stood. Regis did, without thinking about it, something he had never done before and did not consciously know how to do; he dropped into rapport with Dyan, sensing the man’s strength and his exasperation at the way this put Beltran into a position of power.

Strengthen me, Dyan, for what I must do! He felt Dyan’s thoughts, surprise at the sudden contact, an emotion of which Dyan was not quite consciously aware… su servo. Dom, a veis ordenes emprйzi… in the inflection with which he would have put himself at Regis’s orders, now and forever, in life and death at the disposal of a Hastur… once, on the fire-lines during his first year as an officer in the Guards, he had been sent with Dyan into the fire-lines when forest-fire raged in the Venza hills behind Thendara, and once he had looked up and found himself working at Dyan’s side, strained to the uttermost, shared effort in every nerve and muscle. It was very like being back to back, swords out, each guarding the other’s back like paxman and sworn lord… he felt Dyan’s strength backing his as he reached out blindly with his telepathic force—

GET BACK! It was a cry of warning, telepathic and not vocal, but everyone in the crowd experienced it, edged backward. The great heap of weapons began to glow, reddened, turned white-hot…

They vanished, vaporized; there was a great sickening stench for a moment, then that too was gone. Callina was staring, pale as death, at the empty blackened hole in the ground where they had been. Regis felt Dyan’s touch almost like a kinsman’s embrace; then they fell apart again…

He was alone, staring from his isolated watch-post on the wall at the empty space where the great heap of weapons had been. He heard his grandfather’s voice, seizing this opportunity as if he himself had been responsible:

“Kneel now, Beltran of Aldaran, and swear Compact to your assembled equals,” he said, using the word Comyn. Still somewhat dazed at the destruction which had overshadowed his dramatic gesture of giving up his weapons, Beltran knelt and spoke the ritual words.

“And now,” he said, coming up to Callina and bending to kiss her fingertips, “I claim my promised wife.”

She was rigid, conceding only the cold tips of her fingers, but she said, in a voice only half audible, “I will handfast myself to you tonight. I so swear.” Regis could not see her now, he was too far away, but he knew she was cold with rage, and he did not blame her at all.

And then he caught another stray thought he hardly recognized.

I do not need these weapons, for there is a better one at my command than anything the Terrans have made—

Was that Dyan? He did not recognize the touch. Nor would he recognize Beltran’s; when he had been imprisoned in Castle Aldaran he had been a boy, without laran, unwakened, and he would not have recognized Beltran’s mental “voice.”

But a cold and icy shudder went over him, as he knew just what weapon was meant. Was Beltran really mad enough to think of using—that?

And if I have power over Sharra, is it I that must face it?

He had a certain amount of power over the Form of Fire, at least when it manifested itself within a matrix. But neither Rafe nor Javanne had been fully inside Sharra. He did not think he could free Lew’s matrix as he had freed theirs. Lew had been closely sealed to Sharra… and Regis cringed away from that thought.

But he must risk it… but first he should give Rafe’s message. A brief, swift searching told him Lew was nowhere in the crowd at his feet, and he realized that something was happening to his laran for which he had not in the least been prepared: he was using it almost carelessly, without effort.

Is this, then, the Hastur Gift?

Forcibly he put that thought, that fear, aside, and went in search of Lew Alton. By the time he found him, Rafe would be there, and he sensed that Lew would not want to confront Rafe Scott unprepared.

Nor was Regis prepared for seeing Lew as he saw him when first old Andres ushered him into the Alton apartments. It did not seem, for a moment, that it was Lew at all, it did not seem that it was a person at all, just a swirling mass of forces, a presence of anger, a touch of a familiar voice.. .Kennard? But he is dead… and a swift awareness of the terrifying Form of Fire. Regis blinked and somehow managed to bring Lew’s physical presence into focus, to bring the new and terrifying dimensions of his own laran under control. What was happening to him? He never used laran like this, he rarely used it at all… but now, giving it even the slightest mental lease seemed to mean that it would fly like a hawk, free, unwilling to return to being hooded— He forced it down, forced himself to see Lew instead of simply touching him. But the touch came anyhow, and through the texture of it he recognized something he had felt when he linked with Dyan. Quite simply he found himself saying aloud, “But of course; he was your father’s cousin, and close kin to the Altons. Lew, didn’t you know that Dyan had the Alton Gift?”

Of course, this is how he could force rapport on Danilo, this is how he makes his will known and enforces it…

But this is misuse…he uses it thus, to force his will… and this is the gravest crime for one with laran—

He was never trained in its use…He was sent from the Tower…The Alton Gift can kill, and they turned him loose, untrained, not knowing his own power…

Perhaps like mine, wakening late and suddenly growing as mine has grown, like growing out of my clothes when I was a lad, I am not strong enough nor big enough to contain this monstrous thing which is the Hastur Gift…

With main force Regis shut off the flow and said shakily aloud, “Lew, can you put a damper on? I’m not—not used to this.”

Lew nodded, went quickly to a control, and after a moment Regis felt the soothing vibration, blurring the patterns. He was again alone, in control of his own mind. Exhausted, he dropped in a chair.

Dyan is not to blame. The Council did not do their duty by him, but turned him loose, his Gift untrained, unchanneled…

As with mine! But again Regis stopped the flow of thought; thinking, in dismay and outrage, that the damper should have done that. Before they could speak, the door opened and Rafe came in, unannounced.

Lew’s face darkened; but Rafe said “Cousin—” in such a pleading way that Lew gave him an uneasy smile. He said, “Come in, Rafe. None of this is your fault; you’re a victim too.”

“It’s taken me all this time to get up courage enough to tell you this,” said Rafe, “but you have to know. Something the Legate said this morning meant that I didn’t dare wait any longer. I want you to come with me, Lew. There’s something you must see.”

“Can’t you tell me what it is?” Lew asked.

Rafe hesitated and said, “I would rather say this to you alone—” with an uneasy glance at Regis.

Lew’s voice was brusque. “Whatever you have to say; I’ve no secrets from Regis.”

Regis thought, I don’t deserve such confidence. But he slammed his mind shut, wanting no more of the telepathic leakage he suddenly seemed unable to shut out of his mind.

“There was no woman here to take charge,” said Rafe. “I went to your foster-sister. She agreed to take charge of her.”

“Of whom, in God’s name?” Lew demanded, then his mind quickly leaped to conclusions.

“This alleged child who’s been gossiped about in the Guards?”

Rafe nodded and led the way. It was not Linnell, however, who faced them, but Callina.

“I knew,” she said in a low voice. “Ashara told me… there are not many female children in the Domains who might be trained as I have been trained, and I think—I think Ashara wants her…” and she stopped, her words choking off. She gestured to an inner room. “She is there… she was afraid in a strange place and I made her sleep…”

In a small cot, a little girl, five or six years old, lay sleeping. Her hair was copper-red, freshly minted; scattered across her face, which was triangular, scattered with pale gold freckles. She murmured drowsily, still fast asleep.

Regis felt it run through Lew, like a powerful electric shock.

I have seen her before… a dream, a vision, a precognitive dream… she is mine! Not my father’s, not my dead brother’s, mine… my blood knows…

Regis felt his amazement and recognition. He said in a low voice, “Yes; it is like that.” When first he had looked upon the face of his newborn nedestro son there had been a moment of recognition, absolute knowledge, this is my own son, born of my own seed… there had never been any question in his mind; he had not needed the monitoring to tell him this was his own true child.

“But who was her mother?” Lew asked. “Oh, there were a few women in my life, but why did she never tell me?” He broke off as the little girl opened her eyes…

Golden eyes; amber; a strange color, a color he had never seen before, never but once— Regis heard the hoarse gasping cry Lew could not keep back.

“No!” he cried. “It can’t be! Marjorie died… she died… died, and our child with her— Merciful Evanda, am I going mad?”

Rafe’s eyes, so like the eyes Lew remembered, turned compassionately on them both. “Not Marjorie, Lew. This is Thyra’s child. Thyra was her mother.”

“But—but no, it can’t be,” Lew said, gasping, “I never— never once touched her—I would not have touched that hellcat’s fingertips—”

“I’m not quite sure what happened,” Rafe said. “I was very young, and Thyra—didn’t tell me everything. But there was a time, at Aldaran, when you were drugged… and not aware of what you were doing…”

Lew buried his face in his hand, and Regis, unable to shut out anything, felt the full, terrifying flow of his thoughts.

Ah Gods, merciful Evanda, I thought that was all a dream… burning, burning with rage and lust…Marjorie in my arms, but turning, in the mad way dreams do, to Thyra even as I kissed her— Kadarin had done this to me… and I remember Thyra weeping in my dream, crying as she had not done even when her father died…It was not her choice either, Thyra was Kadarin’s pawn too…

“She was born a few seasons after Caer Donn burned,” Rafe said. “Something happened to Thyra when this child was born; I think she went mad for a little while…I do not remember; I was very young, and I had been ill for a long time after the—the burning. I thought, of course, that it was Kadarin’s child, he and Thyra had been together so long…”

And Regis followed Rafe’s thoughts too, a frightening picture of a woman maddened to raving, turning on the child she had not wanted to bear, conceived by a shameful trick…with a man drugged and unaware. A child who had had to be removed to safety from time to time—

The little girl was awake now, sitting up, looking at them all curiously with those wide, improbable amber eyes. She looked at Rafe and smiled, evidently recognizing him. Then she looked at Lew, and Regis could feel it, like a blow, her shock at the sight of the ragged, ugly scars. Lew was scowling. Well, I don’t blame him—to find out, that way, that he had been drugged, used… Regis had seen Thyra only once or twice, and that briefly, but he had somehow, even then, sensed the tension of anger and desire between Thyra and Lew. And they had been together, sealed to Sharra…

The little girl sat up, tense as a small scared animal. Regis could feel again Lew’s shock at the sudden, frightening resemblance to Marjorie.

Then Lew said, his rough voice muted, “Don’t be scared, chiya. I’m not a pretty sight, but believe me, I don’t eat little girls.”

The little girl smiled. Her small face was charming, pointed in a small triangle. A tooth had come out of the middle of her smile.

“They said you were my father.”

“Oh, God, I suppose so,” Lew said. Suppose so. I know I am, damn it. He was wide open now, and Regis could not shut out his thoughts. Lew sat down uneasily on the edge of the cot. “What do they call you, chiy’lla?”

“Marja,” she said shyly. “I mean—Marguerida. Marguerida Kadarin.” She lisped the name in the soft mountain dialect. Marjorie’s name! “But I just be Marja.” She knelt upright, facing him. “What happen to your other hand?”

Regis had seen enough of Javanne’s children—and his own—to know how direct they were; but Lew was disconcerted by her straightforwardness. He blinked and said, “It was hurt and they had to cut it off.”

Her amber eyes were enormous. Regis could feel her thinking this over. “I’m sorry—” and then she said, trying the word out on her tongue, “Father.” She reached up and patted his scarred cheek with her small hand. Lew swallowed hard and caught her against him, his head bent; but Regis could feel that he was shaken, close to tears, and again could not shut out Lew’s thoughts.

I saw this child once, even before Marjorie and I were lovers, saw her in a vision, and thought it meant that Marjorie would bear my child, that all would be well with us—I foresaw; but I did not foresee that Marjorie would have been dead for years before ever this daughter of mine and I should meet…

“Where were you brought up, Marja?”

“In a big house with lots of other little boys and girls,” she said, “They’re orphans, but I’m something else. It’s a bad word that Matron says I must never, never say, but I’ll whisper it to you.”

“Don’t,” Lew said. He could guess; Regis remembered that there were still those who had called him bastard, even after he was acknowledged Heir to Alton. He had her snuggled on his lap now, in the curve of his arm.

If I had known, I would have come back—come back sooner. Somehow, somehow I would have managed to make amends to Thyra for what I did not remember doing…

Before Regis’s questioning look, Lew raised his head. He said doggedly, “I was drugged with aphrosone. It’s vicious stuff; you live a normal life—but you forget from minute to minute what is happening, remember nothing but symbolic dreams…I’ve heard that if you tell a psychiatrist what you remember of the dreams under the drug, he will be able to help you remember what really happened. I didn’t want to know—” and his voice stuck in his throat.

That must have been after they escaped from Aldaran, Regis thought; Marjorie and Lew escaped together, and Kadarin dragged them back, and drugged him, forcing him to serve as the pole of power for Sharra… No wonder he did not want to remember.

“It doesn’t matter,” Lew said, reading Regis’s thoughts, and his arm went around the child, so fiercely that she whimpered in protest. “She’s mine anyhow.”

He looks ugly but he’s nice, I’m glad he’s my father…

They all stared at her in astonishment; she had reached out and touched their minds. Regis thought, but children never have the Gift—

“Thyra was half chieri, they said,” Lew said quietly. “Obviously, Marja does have it. It’s not common, though it’s not unknown. Your Gift waked early, didn’t it, Rafe—nine or ten?”

Rafe nodded. He said “I remember our—foster-father Lord Aldaran—telling us about our mother. She was daughter to one of the forest-folk. And Thyra—” he hesitated, not wanting to say it.

“Go ahead,” said Lew, “whatever it is.”

“You did not know… Thyra. She was… like the chieri. Emmasca; no one was sure whether she was boy or girl. I can remember her like that, when I was very small, but only a little. Then Kadarin came—and very soon after, she began to wear women’s clothing and think of herself as a woman… that was when we began to call her Thyra; before that, she had another name… you did not know that she was as old as Beltran, that she was past her twentieth year when Marjorie was born.”

Lew shook his head, shocked. Regis picked up the thought, I believed she was three or four years older than Marjorie, no more… and a welter of images, resentment and desire, Thyra playing her harp, looking up at Lew in passionate wrath, Thyra’s face suddenly, dreamlike, melting into Marjorie’s

… Marjorie, saying gently; “You were a little in love with Thyra, weren’t you, Lew?”

Lew set the child down. “I’ll have to find a nurse for her; there’s no woman in my apartments to look after her.” He stooped down and kissed the small rosy cheek. “Stay here with my kinswoman Linnell, little daughter.”

She caught at his hand and asked shakily, “Am I going to live with you now?”

“You are,” Lew said firmly, and gestured to Rafe and Regis to leave the room with him. Regis said, with a note of warning, “They are going to use her to depose you…”

“I’m damned sure they’ll try,” Lew said grimly, “A nice, peaceful puppet, pliant in Hastur hands—no, I don’t mean you, Regis, but the old man, and Dyan, and that precious kinsman of mine, Gabriel—the Council never did trust the male adult Altons too much, did they? So they exile me to Armida, or to a Tower, and bring this youngster up in the way they think she should go.” His face looked strained and he clenched his good hand so tightly that Regis was glad he was not the object of Lew’s wrath.

“Let them try,” he said, and his hand twitched as if he had it around the neck of some one, “Just let them try, damn them! She’s mine—and if they think they can take her away from me again, they are welcome to try!”

Regis and Rafe exchanged glances of mingled relief and dismay. Regis had hoped that something, somehow, would awaken Lew out of his deadly apathy, make him care for some one and something again. Now it seemed as if something had done just that. Well, they had raised the wind—but there might be hell to pay before this was over!

CHAPTER TEN

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Lew Alton’s narrative

The day was darkening toward twilight. Looking out over the city, I could see the streets beginning to fill with the laughing, masked, flower-tossing crowds of Festival Night. I would be expected to appear for the Alton Domain at the great ball in the Comyn Castle; it was simply part of being what I was, and although they had not made any overt move to depose me from my place as Head of the Domain, I intended to give them no chance to say I was neglecting any part of my duty. Now, among other things, I must somehow arrange proper care for Marja. Andres would guard her with his life, if he knew she were mine, but a child that age needed a woman to look after her, to dress her and bathe her and make sure she had proper playthings and companionship. Regis offered to place her in Javanne’s care; his sister had twin daughters who were about her age. I thanked him but refused; Javanne Hastur has never liked me, and Javanne’s husband, Gabriel Lanart-Hastur, was one of the main contenders for the Domain. The last thing I wanted was to place this child in his keeping.

I thought regretfully of Dio. I had been too quick to dissolve our marriage. She had wanted my child, and even though our son had died, perhaps she would have allowed this one to fill the place left vacant… but no; that would be asking too much, that she should love another woman’s child as her own. When I thought of her, the old suffering and resentment surfaced. In any case, if she were here, I could consult her about the proper way to raise a girl child— I wondered how Callina would feel about it. And then I remembered that Callina had sworn to marry Beltran.

Over my dead body, I vowed silently, left Marja in Andres’s care (he said that he knew a decent woman, the wife of one of my father’s paxmen, who would come to care for her, if I took her home to Armida) and went to seek out Callina.

She looked weary and harried.

“The girl’s awake,” she said. “She was hysterical when she wakened; I had to give her a sedative. She’s calmed down a little, but of course she doesn’t speak the language, and she’s frightened in a strange place. Lew, what are we going to do now?”

“I won’t know till I see her. Where is she?”

So much had happened in the intervening hours that I had all but forgotten Ashara’s plan, the woman who had been brought through the Screen. She had been moved to a spacious room in the Aillard apartments; when we came in she was lying across the bed, her face buried in the covers, and she looked as if she had been crying; but it was a tearless and defiant face she raised to me. She was still Linnell’s double; even more so, having been decently dressed in clothing I supposed—correctly—to be some of Linnell’s own.

“Please tell me the truth,” she said steadily, as I came in. “Am I mad and locked up somewhere?” She spoke one of the dialects I knew perfectly well… of course; I had talked with her at length, that night on Vainwal when my son had been born, and died. And even as this crossed my mind I saw the memory reflected in her face.

“But I remember you!” she cried out, “The man with one hand—the one who had that—that—that terribly deformed—” My face must have done something she didn’t know about, because she stopped. “Where am I? Why have you kidnapped me and brought me here?”

I said quietly, “You needn’t be afraid.” I remembered saying the same thing to Marja; she had been afraid of me too. But I could not reassure her with the same words that had comforted a five-year-old child. “Allow me to introduce myself. Lewis-Kennard Montray-Lanart, z’par servu—”

“I know who you are,” she said steadily. “What I don’t know is how I got here. A red sun—”

“If you’ll be calm, I’ll explain everything,” I said. “I am sorry, I cannot remember your name—”

“Kathie Marshall,” she said.

“Terranan?”

“Yes. But I know we’re not on Terra, nor on Vainwal,” she said, and her voice trembled; but she made no display of fear. I said, “The Terranan call this Cottman’s Star. We call it Darkover. We brought you here because we need your help—”

“You must be crazy,” she said. “How could I help you? And if I could, what makes you think I would, after you’ve kidnapped me?”

That was, I supposed, a fair question. I reached out to try to touch her mind; if she could not understand our language, at least this might reassure her that we meant no harm.

Callina said, “You were brought here because you were twinned in mind with my sister Linnell—”

She backed away. “Twinned minds? That’s ridiculous! Do you think I believe in that kind of thing?”

“If you do not,” said Callina quietly, “how is it that suddenly you can understand what I am saying?”

“Why, you’re speaking Terran… no!” she said, and I saw the terror rise in her mind again. “Why, what language am I speaking—?”

It was reasonable that if she was Linnell’s Cherillys double, she would have laran potential; at least she could understand us now. Callina said, “We hoped we could persuade you to help us; but there will be no compulsion and certainly no force.”

“Where am I, then?”

“In the Comyn Castle in Thendara.”

“But that’s halfway across the Galaxy…” she whispered, and turned frantically to stare out the window, at the red light of the declining sun. I saw her white hands clench on a fold of curtain. “A red sun—” she whispered, “Oh, I have nightmares like this when I can’t wake up…” She was so deathly white I feared she would collapse; Callina put an arm around her, and this time Kathie did not pull away.

“Try to believe us, child,” Callina said. “You are here, on Darkover. We brought you here.”

“And who are you?”

“Callina Aillard. Keeper of Comyn Council.”

“I’ve heard about the Keepers,” Kathie said, then, shakily, “this whole thing is crazy! You can’t take a Terran citizen and pull her halfway across the Galaxy like this! My—my father will tear the planet apart looking for me—” She covered her face with her hands. “I—I want to go home!”

I wished that we had never started this whole thing. I was remembering the aureole of doom, fate, death which I had seen around Linnell… merciful Evanda, was it only last night? I wondered if this had endangered Linnell in some way; what happened when Cherillys duplicates met one another? There was not even a legend to guide me. There was an old legend from the Kilghard Hills, about a mountain chief, or a bandit lord—in those days, I supposed, it would be hard to distinguish between them—who had located his duplicate so that he could command his army by being in two places at once; but I couldn’t remember any more than that, and I had no idea what had happened to the duplicate once his day was done. Possibly the bandit chief let his duplicate be hanged for his own crimes. In any case, I was sure he came to a bad end.

Would this woman’s presence endanger Linnell? There was one precaution I could take; I could put a protective barrier around her mind, so that she would keep her invulnerability, her complete unawareness of these Darkovan forces. I hoped that in touching her mind, to give her knowledge of the language, I had not already breached that unawareness; at least I would make sure no one else did so. In effect, I meant to put a barrier around her mind so that any attempt to make telepathic contact with Kathie, or dominate her mind, would be immediately shunted, through a sort of bypass circuit built into the barrier, to me.

There was no sense in trying to explain what I meant to do. I would have to start by explaining the very nature of the laran Gifts, and since, as Linnell’s exact duplicate, she had laran potential, when I had done explaining, she might be adapted and vulnerable to Darkovan forces. I reached out as gently as I could, and made contact.

It was an instant of screaming pain in every nerve, then it blanked out, and Kathie was sobbing convulsively.

“What did you do? I felt you—it was horrible—but no, that’s crazy—or I’m crazy—what happened?”

“Why couldn’t you wait till she understood?” Callina demanded. But I had done what I had to do, and I had done it now, because I wanted Kathie safely barriered before anyone saw her and guessed. But it hurt to see her cry; I had never been able to stand Linnell’s tears. Callina looked up helplessly, trying to soothe the weeping girl.

“Go away. I’ll handle this.” And as Kathie’s sobs broke out afresh, “Lew, go away!”

Suddenly I was angry. Why didn’t Callina trust me? I bowed elaborately and said, “Su serva, domna,” in my coldest, most ironic voice, turned my back and went out.

And in that moment, when I left Callina in anger, I snapped the trap shut on us all.

As darkness fell, every light in the Comyn Castle began to glow; once in every journey of Darkover around its sun, the Comyn, city folk from Thendara, mountain lords with business in the lowlands, offworld consuls and ambassadors and Terrans from the Trade City, mingled together on Festival Night with a great show of cordiality. Now it involved everyone of any importance on the planet; and Festival opened with a great display of dancing in the great ball-room.

Centuries of tradition made this a masked affair, so that Comyn and commoner might mingle on equal terms. In compliance with custom I wore a narrow half mask, but had made no other attempt at disguise; though I had worn my mechanical hand, simply so that I would not be a marked man. My father, I thought wryly, would have approved. I stood at one end of the hall, talking idly with a couple of Terrans in the space service, and as soon as I decently could, I got away and went to one of the windows, looking out at the four miniature moons that had nearly floated into conjunction.

Behind me the great hall blazed with colors and costumes reflecting every corner of Darkover and much of our history. Derik wore an elaborate and gaudy costume from the Ages of Chaos, but he was not masked—one part of a prince’s duty is simply to be visible to his subjects. I recognized Rafe Scott, too, in the mask and whip of a kifirgh duelist, complete with clawed gloves.

In the corner reserved by tradition for young girls, Linnell’s spangled mask was a travesty of disguise. Her eyes were glowing with happy consciousness of all the eyes on her; as comynara she was known to everyone on Darkover—at least in the Domains—but she rarely saw anyone outside the narrow circle of her cousins and the few selected companions permitted to a lady of the Aillard Domain. Now, masked, she could speak to, or even dance with, complete strangers; the excitement of it was almost too much for her.

Beside her, also masked, I saw Kathie, and wondered if that was another of Callina’s brilliant ideas. Well, there was no harm in it; with the bypass circuit I had put into her brain, she was safely barricaded; and there was hardly a better way of proving to her that she was not a prisoner but an honored guest. They would probably think her a minor noble woman of the Aillard clan.

Linnell laughed up at me as I approached her.

“Lew, I am teaching your cousin from Terra some of our dances. Imagine, she didn’t know them.”

My cousin from Terra. I supposed that was another idea of Callina’s. Well, it explained the faint unfamiliarity with which she spoke Darkovan. Kathie said gently, “I wasn’t taught dancing, Linnell.”

“You weren’t? What did you study, then? Lew, don’t they dance on Terra?”

“Dancing,” I said dryly, “is an integral part of all human cultures. It is a group activity passed down from the group movements of birds and anthropoids, and also a social channeling of mating behavior among all higher primates, including man. Among such quasi-human cultures as those of the chieri it becomes an ecstatic behavior pattern akin to drunkenness. Yes, they dance on Terra, on Megaera, Samarra, Alpha Ten, Vainwal, and in fact from one end of the Galaxy to the other. For further information, lectures on anthropology are given in the city; I’m not in the mood.” I turned to Kathie in what I hoped was proper cousinly fashion. “Suppose we do it instead.”

I added to Kathie as we danced, “Certainly you wouldn’t know that dancing is a major study with children here; Linnell and I both learned as soon as we could walk. I had only basic instruction—after that I went to training in the martial arts—but Linnell has been studying ever since.” I glanced affectionately back at Linnell, who was dancing with Regis Hastur. “I went to a dance or two on Vainwal. Are our dances so different?”

But as I talked I was studying the Terran woman carefully. Kathie had guts and brains, I realized. It took them to come here after the shock she had had, and play the part tacitly assigned to her. And Kathie had another rare quality; she seemed unaware that the arm circling her waist was unlike any other arm and hand. That’s not common; even Linnell had given it a quick, furtive stare. Well, Kathie worked in hospitals, she had probably seen worse things.

With seeming irrelevance, Kathie said, “And Linnell is your cousin, your kinswoman—?”

“My foster-sister; she was brought up in my father’s home. We’re not blood kin, except insofar as all Comyn have common ancestry.”

“She’s very—well, it’s as if she were really my twin sister; I feel as if I’d always known her, I loved her the moment I saw her. But I’m afraid of Callina. It’s not that she’s been unkind to me—no one could have been kinder—but she seems so remote, somehow, not quite human!”

“She’s a Keeper,” I said, “they are taught not to show emotions, that’s all.” But I wondered if that were all it was.

“Please—” Kathie touched my arm, “let’s not dance; on Vainwal I’m a good enough dancer, but here I feel like a stumbling elephant!”

‘“You probably weren’t taught as intensively.” To me that was the strangest thing about Terra; the casualness with which they regarded this one talent which distinguishes man from the four-footed kind. There is a saying on Darkover; only men laugh, only men dance, only men weep. Women who could not dance—how could they have true beauty?

I started to return Kathie to the corner where the young women waited; and as I turned, I saw Callina enter the ballroom. And for me, the music stopped.

I have seen the black night of interstellar space flecked with a hundred million stars. Callina looked like that, in a filmy web like a scrap torn out of that sky, her dark hair netted with pale constellations. I heard drawn breaths, gasps of shock everywhere.

“How beautiful she is,” breathed Kathie, “but what does the costume represent? I’ve never seen one like it—”

“I’ve no idea,” I said, but I lied. The tale was told in the Ballad of Hastur and Cassilda, the most ancient legend of the Comyn; Camilla, slain by the shadow-sword in the place of her bright sister, so that she passed away into the realms of darkness under the shadow of Avarra, Dark Lady of birth and death… I had no idea why a woman on the eve of her bridal, even in the case of so unappealing a marriage as this, should choose to come in such a dress. I wondered what would happen when Beltran of Aldaran caught the significance of that? A more direct insult would be hard to devise, unless she had come in the dress of the public hangman!

I excused myself quickly from Kathie and went in the direction of Callina. I agreed that this marriage was a sickening farce, but she had no right to embarrass her family like this. But Merryl reached her first, and I caught the tail end of his lecture.

“A pretty piece of spite—embarrass us all before our guests, when Beltran has made so generous a gesture—”

“He may keep his generosity as far as I am concerned,” Callina said. “Brother, I will not look or act a lie. This dress pleases me; it is perfectly suited to the way I have been treated all my life by Comyn!” Her laugh was musical and bitter. “Beltran would endure more insult than this, for laran-right in Comyn Council! Wait and see!”

“Do you think I am going to dance with you while you are wearing that—” his voice failed him; he was crimson with wrath. Callina said, “As for that, you may please yourself. I am willing to behave in a civilized manner. If you are not, it is your loss.” She turned to me and said, almost a command, “Lord Alton will dance with me.” She held out her arms, and I moved into them; but this boldness was unlike her, and put me ill at ease. Callina was a Keeper; always, in public, she had been timid, self-effacing, overwhelmingly shy and modest. This new Callina, drawing all eyes with a shocking costume, startled me. And what would Linnell think?

“I’m sorry about Linnell,” said Callina, “but the dress pleases my mood. And—it is becoming, is it not?”

It was, but the coquetry with which she glanced up at me, shocked and startled me; it was as if a painted statue had come to life and begun flirting with me. Well, she had asked me. “You’re too damned beautiful,” I said, hoarsely, then drew her into a recess and crushed my mouth down on hers, hard and savagely. “Callina, Callina, you’re not going through this crazy farce of a marriage, are you?”

For a moment she was passive, startled, then went rigid, bending back and pushing me frantically away. “No! Don’t!”

I let my arms drop and stood looking at her, slow fury heating my face. “That’s not the way you acted last night— nor just now! What is it that you want anyhow, Callina?”

She bent her head. She said bitterly, as if from a long way off, “Does it matter what I want? Who has ever asked me? I am only a pawn in the game, to be moved about as they choose!”

I took her hand in mine, and she did not pull it away. I said urgently, “Callina, you don’t have to do this! Beltran is disarmed, no longer a threat—”

“Would you have me forsworn?”

“Forsworn or dead rather than married to him,” I said, rage building in me. “You don’t know what he is!”

She said, “I have given my word. I—” she looked up at me and suddenly her face crumpled into weeping. “Can’t you spare me this?”

“Did you ever think that there are things you might have spared me?” I demanded. “So be it, Callina; I wish Beltran joy of his bride!” I turned my back on her, disregarding her stifled cry, and strode away.

I don’t know where I thought I was going. Anywhere, out of there. A telepath is never at ease in crowds, and I have trouble coping with them. I know that a path cleared for me through the dancers; then, quite unexpectedly, a voice said, “Lew!” and I stopped cold, staring down at Dio.

She was wearing a soft green gown, trimmed with white; her hair waved softly around her face, and she had done nothing to disguise the golden-brown freckles that covered her cheeks. She looked rosy and healthy, not the white, wasted, hysterical woman I had last seen in the hospital on Vainwal. She waited a minute, then said, as she had said the first time we came face to face, “Aren’t you going to ask me to dance, Dom Lewis?”

I blinked at her. I must have looked a great gawk, staring with my mouth open.

“I didn’t know you were in Thendara!”

“Why shouldn’t I be?” she retorted. “Do you think I am an invalid? Where else would I be, at Council season? Yet you have not even paid me a courtesy call, nor sent flowers on the morning of Festival! Are you so angry because I failed you?”

A dancing couple reeled within a half-step of us, and a strange woman said irritably, “Must you block the dancing floor? If you are not dancing, at least get out of the way of those who are!”

I took Dio’s elbow, not too gently, and steered her out on the sidelines. “I am sorry—I did not know you wanted flowers from me. I did not know you were in Thendara.” Suddenly all my bitterness overflowed. “I do not yet know the courtesies of dealing with a wife who abandoned me!”

“I abandoned—” she broke off and stared at me. She said, evidently trying to steady her voice. “I abandoned you? I thought you divorced me because I could not give you a healthy son—”

“Who told you that?” I demanded, grasping her shoulders until she winced; I loosened my grip, but went on urgently, “I went back to the hospital! They told me you had left, with your brothers—”

Gradually the color left her face, till the freckles stood out dark against her white skin. She said, “Lerrys bundled me onto the ship before I could walk…He had to carry me. He told me that as the Head of a Domain, you could not marry a woman who could not give you an Heir—”

“Zandru send him scorpion whips!” I swore. “He came to me, just after I came here—he threatened to kill me—said you had been through enough—Dio, I swear I thought it was what you wanted—”

Her eyes were beginning to overflow and I saw her bite her lip; Dio could never bear to cry where anyone could see her. She put out a hand to me, then drew it back and said, “I come here to Festival—hoping to see you—and I find you in Callina’s arms!” She turned her back on me, and started to move away; I held her back with a hand on her shoulder.

“Lerrys has made enough mischief,” I said. “We’ll have this out with him, and we’ll do it now! Is he here, that damned mischief-maker?”

“How dare you speak that way of my brother?” Dio demanded inconsistently. “He was doing what he thought was best for me! At that point I was hysterical, I never wanted to see you again—”

“And I was complying with your wishes,” I said, drawing a deep breath. “Dio, what’s the use of all this? It’s done. I did what I thought you wanted—”

“And I come here to find you and see if it was what you wanted,” Dio flung at me, “and I find you already consoling yourself with that damned frozen stick of a Keeper! I hope she strikes you with lightning when you touch her—you deserve it!”

“Don’t talk that way about Callina—” I said sharply.

“She is sworn Keeper; what does she want with my husband?”

“You made it very clear that I was not your husband—”

“Then why was it I who was served with notice of a divorce? What a fool I will look—” Again she looked as if she were going to cry. I put my arm around her, trying to comfort her, but she pulled herself angrily away. “If that’s what you want, you are welcome to it! You and Callina—”

I said, “Don’t be a fool, Dio! Callina will be handfasted to Beltran within the hour! I couldn’t stop her—”

“I’ve no doubt you tried,” Dio retorted. “I saw you!”

I sighed. Dio was determined to make a scene. I still thought we should settle this in private, but I was on guard, too. She had made me feel like a fool, not the other way around; and she had had every right to leave me after the suffering I had put her through; but I did not want to be reminded again of the tragedy, I was still too raw about it. “Dio, this is neither the time nor the place—”

“Can you think of a better?” She was furious; I didn’t blame her. If Lerrys had been there, I think I would have killed him. So she had not left me, after all, of her own free will. Yet, as I looked at her angry face, I realized that there was no way to go back where we had left off.

Others were looking at us curiously. I was not surprised; I, at least, must have been broadcasting my emotions—which were largely confusion—all through the ballroom. I said, “We had better dance,” and touched her arm. It was not a couple-dance and I was grateful; I did not want quite that much intimacy, not now, not here, not with all that lay between us. I moved into the outer ring of men, and Dio let Linnell move to her side and draw her into the circle. Strange, I thought, that Linnell, my closest kinswoman, did not know of our brief marriage nor the disastrous way in which it had ended. It was not, after all, the sort of story to tell a young woman on the verge of her own marriage. I saw how she looked at Derik as she pulled him into the set. Then the music began and I gave myself up to it, as the figure of the dance swept Dio toward me, with a formal bow, and away again. At last, as the dance ended, we faced one another again and bowed. I saw Derik slide his arm through Linnell’s, and was left with Dio again.

I said formally, “May I bring you some refreshment?”

Her eyes glinted tears. “Must you be so formal? Is this nothing but a game to you?”

I shook my head, tucked my hand under her arm and led her toward the buffet. Her head hardly came up to my shoulder. I had forgotten what a little thing she was; I always remembered her as being taller. Perhaps it was the way she carried herself, proud and independent, perhaps it was only that on Vainwal, like many women, she had worn high-heeled shoes, and here she had reverted to the low soft sandals that women wore in the Domains. The pale green of her gown made her hair shine reddish gold.

Our separation need not be final. Dio as Lady Alton, and we could live at Armida… and for a moment I was overcome with a flood of homesickness for the hills of my home, the long shadows at twilight, the way the sun lowered over the line of tall trees behind the Great House… I could have this still, I could have it with Dio—

The long refreshment tables were laden with every kind of delicacy one could imagine. I dipped her up a cup of some sweet red fruit drink; tasting it, discovered it had been heavily laced with some strong and colorless spirit, for a single glass made me dizzy. Dio, watching as I drank, set hers down untasted and said, “I don’t want to get drunk here tonight. There’s something—I don’t know what it is. I’m frightened.”

I took that seriously. Dio’s instincts were good; and she was one of the hypersensitive Ridenows. Nevertheless, I said, “What’s wrong? Is it only that there are Terrans and off-worlders here tonight?” Lawton was there, with several functionaries from the Terran HQ, and it suddenly occurred to me to wonder if Kathie would see the Terran uniforms, appeal to them for protection, accuse us of kidnapping or worse. Most Terrans knew nothing of matrix technology, and some of them were ready to believe anything about it. And I was quite sure that what Callina and I had done was now against some law or other.

Dio was lightly in rapport with me, and she turned to say with asperity, “Can’t you get Callina out of your mind for a minute, even when you are talking with me?”

I could hardly believe this; Dio was jealous? “Do you care, preciosa?”

“I shouldn’t, but I do,” she said, raising her face to me, suddenly serious. “I think I wouldn’t mind… if she wanted you… but I don’t want to see you hurt. I don’t think you know everything about Callina.”

“And of course, you do?”

She said, “It was I who should have gone to the Comyn Tower, to be trained as—as Ashara’s surrogate. I did not want to be nothing more than—than a pawn for Ashara. I had known one of the—one of her other under-Keepers. And so I made certain that I was—” she hesitated, colored a little—“disqualified.”

I understood that. There is now no reason why a Keeper must be a sworn virgin, set apart, consecrated, near-worshipped. For good reasons, they remain celibate while they are functioning as Keeper in a circle; but not in the old, superstitious, ritualistic way. There had been a time when a woman chosen as Keeper entered upon a lifelong sentence of alienation, chastity, separation; not now. Yet, for some reason or another, Ashara chose her under-Keepers from those who were trained as virgins; and Dio’s way was as good as any to avoid that sentence.

I understood, suddenly, why Callina had rebuffed me. The marriage with Beltran was to be empty ceremonial, politically arranged; Callina had no intention of giving up her role as Keeper in Ashara’s place. I should have been complimented—she was well aware that I would not accept that kind of separation. She was not indifferent to me; and she had let me know it. And for that reason she dared not let me come near.

Folly, folly twice over, then, to love the forbidden. Yet the thought that she might fall into Beltran’s keeping frightened me. Would he really be content with a formal arrangement, where he had the name of consort, and no other privileges? Callina was a beautiful woman, and Beltran was not indifferent—

“Lew, you are as far away from me as if you were on Vainwal again,” Dio said irritably, and took the glass of fruit juice I had dipped up for her. I watched her, wondering what would come next. I was a fool for thinking, even for a moment, of Callina, who was forbidden to me, who had put herself beyond my reach… Keeper or no, Beltran’s wife would be forbidden; I was sworn Comyn and they had conferred Comyn immunity upon him. That was a fact, one I could neither climb over nor go round. And this business with Dio loomed between me and any life I might make for myself. I recognized, with a surge of humiliation, it was not for me to say, I will have this woman or that; it was, rather, which of them would have me. I seemed to have no choice in the matter, and in any case I was no prize for a woman. Mutilated, damned, haunted.. .1 forced down the sickening surge of self-pity, and looked up at Dio.

“I must pay my respects to my foster-sister; will you join me?”

She shrugged, saying, “Why not?” and followed me. A nagging unease, half telepathic, beat at me. I saw Callina, dancing with Beltran, and stubbornly looked away. If that was her choice, so be it. Viciously, I hoped he’d try to kiss her. Lerrys, Dyan? If they were here, they were in costume and unrecognizable. Half the Terran colony could be here tonight, and I would not know.

But Linnell was dancing with someone I did not recognize, and I turned to where Merryl Aillard and Derik were chatting idly in a corner. Derik looked flushed, and his voice was thick and unsteady. “Ev’n, Lew.”

“Derik, have you seen Regis Hastur? What’s his costume?”

“D’know,” Derik said thickly, “I’m Derik, tha’s all I know. Have ’nough trouble ’memberin’ that. You try it sometime.”

“A fine spectacle,” I muttered, “Derik, I wish you would remember who you are! Merryl, can’t you get him out of here and sober him up a little? Derik, do you realize what a show you are giving the Terrans and our kinfolk?”

“I think—forget y’self,” he mumbled, “Not your affair wha’ I do—ain’t drunk anyhow…”

“Linnell should be very proud of you,” I snapped. “Merryl, go and drag him under a cold shower or something, can’t you?”

“L’nell’s mad at me,” Derik spoke in tones of intimate self-pity. “Won’ even dansh…”

“Who would?” I muttered, standing on both feet so I would not kick him. It was bad enough to need a Regency in times like these, but when the heir-presumptive to the crown makes a drunken spectacle of himself before half of Thendara, that was worse. I resolved to hunt up Hastur, who had authority I didn’t, and influence with Derik—at least I hoped so. Merryl did, but he was no help. I scanned the riot of costumes, looking for Danvan Hastur, or even Regis. Or perhaps I could find Linnell, who might be able to persuade or shame him into leaving the room and sobering up.

One costume suddenly caught my eye. I had seen such harlequins in old books on Terra; parti-colored, a lean beaked cap over a masked face, lean and somehow horrible. Not in itself, for the costume was no worse than grotesque, but a sort of atmosphere—I told myself not to imagine things.

“No, I don’t like him either,” said Regis quietly at my side. “And I don’t like the atmosphere of this room—or this night.”

I said, “I keep thinking I have seen him before.” I did not know what I was going to say until I heard myself saying it. “I feel—I feel as if all hell was going to break loose!”

Regis nodded gravely. He said, “You have some of the Aldaran Gift, don’t you? Foresight…” he saw Dio was still at my elbow and bowed to her. “Greetings, vai domna. You are Lerrys’s sister, are you not?”

I looked again at the harlequin-masked man. I felt I should know him, that somehow his name was on the very tip of my tongue. At the same time I felt a curious twisting fear; why could I not remember, not recognize him?

But before I could force myself further, the dome lights were switched off. Immediately the room was flooded with streaming moonlight. There was a soft “A-ahh—” from the thronged guests as through the clearing transparency of the dome, the four moons floated high, in full conjunction, one above the other; the pale violet face of Liriel, sea-green Idriel, the peacock shimmer of Kyrrdis, and the pale pearl of Mor-mallor. I felt a faint touch on my arm and looked down at Dio.

This is not how I had imagined we would return home together… for a moment I was not sure whether it was her thought or mine. Couples were moving onto the floor for the moonlight dance which was traditionally a dance for pledged couples; I saw Linnell approaching Derik—drunk or no, she would consider herself bound and obligated for this. I was unable, suddenly, to resist the old tie, the old attraction; I drew Dio into my arms and we moved onto the floor. Over her shoulder I saw that Regis was standing alone at the edge of the dance floor, his face cold and detached, in spite of the women who made a point of standing conveniently near in case he should choose one of them. Dio felt warm and familiar in my arms. Was this what I had wanted all along? I found that I resented that smile which took so much for granted. Yet the rhythm of the music pounded in my blood. I had forgotten this—the sense of being altogether in key with one another, resonating to the same music, like a single body moving to the sound, and as she had done once before, she reached out, almost without volition, and the mind-touch came between us, a locking closer than any physical intimacy… closeness, home, fulfillment. As the final chord of music rang in the night, I caught her close and kissed her, hard.

The silence was anticlimax. Dio slid from my arms, and I felt cold and alone again. The lights, coming on again under the dome, caught her looking up at me with a strange smile.

“So I have had that much of you,” she said softly. “Was it never any more than that, Lew—that I was a woman, and you were alone and—in need? Was it never more than that?”

“I don’t know, Dio. I swear I don’t know,” I said wearily. “Can’t we leave it for now, and settle it sometime when— when half of Thendara isn’t watching us?”

She said, unexpected, her face very grave, “I don’t think we will be given that much time. I’m frightened, Lew. Something is very wrong. On the surface, everything’s as it’s always been, but there’s something—something that shouldn’t be here, and I don’t know what—”

Dio had the sensitive Ridenow gift; I trusted her instincts. But what could I do? Certainly nothing could be done here, no one would dare strike at any of us before the City and the assembled guests. Still, Regis had said very much the same thing, and I was myself uneasy.

As I threaded my way through the crowd, in search of Linnell or Callina, I saw again the stranger in the harlequin costume. Whom did I know who was tall and rangy, like that, why did he strike me as strange, over-familiar? He was too tall to be Lerrys, yet it seemed the hostility which beat out toward me from him was very much like what I had sensed in Lerrys when he warned me to stay away from Dio.

(And Dio was at my side. Would Lerrys make good his threats, here and now?)

Again I moved through the crowd. I had spoken to Regis and forgotten to speak to him about Derik—there was too much on my mind, it seemed I had been moving aimlessly back and forth through this wretched yammering crowd all night, and my barriers were beginning to loosen; I would not be able to endure the mental jangle of it much longer. A few cadets were crowding near the long banquet tables, greedily attacking the heaped delicacies there, delighted at the change from barracks food. Among them I recognized both of Javanne’s sons, Rafael and the younger Gabriel. I supposed one of them would still consider himself my Heir…

I have no son, I shall never have a son; but I have a daughter and I shall fight for her right to hold Armida after me… and then I was seized with a sickening sense of futility. Would there be anything to hold, after Beltran took his place in Comyn Council and destroyed us all? Would it not be better to take Marja—and Dio if she would come—and go back to Terra, or Vainwal, or out to one of the worlds at the far edge of the Empire where we could build a new life for ourselves?

I’m not a fighter. I can fight if I must, and my father tried his best, from the day I was big enough to clasp my hands around the hilt of a sword, to make certain that I would be good at it, and I had learned because I had had no choice. But I have never enjoyed it, despite his efforts to make me excel in arms-play, in unarmed combat, as a soldier.

Damn him, even his last words had been of battle… I could hear them now, surging inside me as if they were being spoken now, not in memory: Return to Darkover, fight for your brother’s rights and your own…

and he had thrust me into this seething hell…

“How you are scowling, Lew,” Linnell said in pretty reproof. “This is supposed to be a celebration!”

I tried to move my face into something like a sociable smile. Sometimes I would rather be in the ninth and coldest of Zandru’s hells than in a crowd where I have to be sociable, and this was one of those times, but I was not going to spoil Linnell’s enjoyment. I said, “Sorry, this ugly mug of mine is bad enough, I suppose, without making it worse.”

“You’re not ugly to me, foster-brother,” she said, in the intimate mode that made it an endearment. “If I wish your face were unmarred it is only a way of wishing you hadn’t suffered so much. The flowers you sent me were beautiful,” she added. “See, I am wearing some of them on my gown.”

I smiled a little ruefully and said, “You must thank Andres; he selected them. They suit you, though.” I thought Linnell herself was rather like a flower, rosy and bright, smiling up at me. “I saw you dancing with Derik; I hope you told that wretch Merryl to take him away and sober him up!”

“Oh, but he isn’t drunk, Lew,” she said seriously, laying a hand on my wrist. “It’s only his bad luck that he should have one of these spells on Festival Night…He gets like this sometimes, and when he was younger, they used to keep him in bed and out of sight—he doesn’t drink at all, because it makes him so much worse, he never even touches wine with dinner. I was angry with him because he took one drink—some fruit drink which had been doctored with strong firi, and he wouldn’t offend Merryl by refusing it—”

“That was a mean trick; I had some of it myself,” I said. “Now I wonder just who did that, in such a way that Derik would get some?” I had a few suspicions. Lerrys, for instance, would be glad to see our presumptive king, poor thing that he was, making more of a fool of himself than usual.

“Oh, surely, it was an accident, Lew,” Linnell said, shocked. “No one would do a thing like that on purpose, would they? It does taste very good, I hardly knew there was anything in it; I might easily have drunk more than one glass, and of course, poor Derik, he’s not familiar enough with drink to know that something which tasted only of fruits would make him so much worse—”

So someone who had a vested interest in proving Derik thoroughly incompetent had made sure he had some harmless-tasting drink which would emphasize his various impediments and confuse him worse than ever. Merryl? Merryl was supposedly his friend. Lerrys? He might do anything which would throw us into the arms of the Terran Empire, and he had the kind of devious mind which would enjoy a dirty trick like that. I wondered how, in that family, Dio had turned out so forthright and straightforward.

I said, “Well, he certainly appeared drunk, and I’m afraid most people would think it of him!”

“When we are married,” she said, smiling gently, “I will make certain no one can lead him into such things. Derik is not always a fool, Lew. No, he is not brilliant, certainly he will always need someone like Regis—or you, Lew—to guide him in matters of policy. But he knows he is not very bright, and he will let himself be guided. And I will make certain that it is not Merryl who guides him, either.”

Linnell might sound and look like a delicate, flowerlike, fragile young girl, but behind all that there was strong common sense and practicality, too. I said, “It’s a pity you are not Head of the Domain, sister; they would never have been able to marry you off to Beltran.” I turned and saw Kathie, who had been dancing with Rafe Scott, and hoped she had had sense enough not to say anything to him. And beyond her was the harlequin who had so deeply disturbed me… damn it, who was he?

“Lew, who is Kathie really? When I’m near her I feel terribly strange. It’s not so much that she looks like me—it’s as if she were a part of myself, I know what she’s going to do before she does it… I know, for instance, that she’s going to turn—there, you see? And she’s coming this way…and then I feel, it’s a kind of pain, as if I had to touch her, embrace her. I can’t keep away from her! But when I actually do touch her, I have to pull away, I can’t endure it…” Linnell was twisting her hands nervously, ready to burst into hysterical tears or laughter, and Linnell wasn’t a girl to fret over trifles. If it affected her like this, it was something serious. What did happen, I wondered, when Cherillys doubles came face to face?

Well, I was about to see, whatever it was. As Kathie ended the dance she moved toward Linnell, and almost without discernible volition, Linnell began to move in her direction. Was Kathie working some malicious mental trick on my little cousin? But no, Kathie had no awareness of Darkovan powers, and even if she had potential for laran, nothing could get through that block I’d put around her mind.

Linnell touched Kathie’s hand, almost shyly; in immediate response, Kathie put an arm around Linnell’s waist, and they walked enlaced for a minute or two; then with a sudden nervous movement, Linnell drew herself free and came to me.

“There is Callina,” she said.

The Keeper, aloof in her starry draperies, threaded her way through the maze of dancers seeking new partners, moving toward the refreshment tables.

“Where have you been, Callina?” Linnell demanded. She looked at the dress with sorrowful puzzlement, but Callina made no attempt to justify or explain herself. I reached out to touch her mind; but I felt only the strange, cold, stony presence which I had felt once or twice near Callina, a door locked and slammed, cold and guarded.

“Oh, Derik drew me off to listen to some long drunken tale—I thought you told me he never drinks, Linnie? He never did get it all told… the wine conquered him at last. May he never fall to a worse enemy. I ordered Merryl to find his body-servant and have him carried to his rooms, so you’ll have to find someone else to dance with for the midnight dance, darling.” She looked indifferently around the room. “I suppose I’ll be dancing with Beltran; Hastur is signaling to me. Probably he intends to begin the ceremony now.”

“Am I to come with you then?”

Callina said, still with that icy indifference, “I will not give this farce any of the trappings of a wedding, Linnie. Nor will I drag any of my kinsmen into it… why do you think I made sure Merryl was well out of the way?”

“Oh, Callina—” Linnell said, reaching for her, but she moved away, leaving Linnell with her arms outstretched, hurt and bewildered.

“Don’t pity me, Linnie,” she said tensely, “I—won’t have it.” I was sure that what she meant was, I can’t bear it.

I don’t know what I would have said or done at that moment, if she had turned to me; but she drew herself apart from us; her eyes brooded, blue ice like Ashara’s, past me into silence. Bitter and helpless, I watched her move away through the crowds in that dress that was a reminder of death, doom, shadows.

I should have guessed everything, then, when she left us without a word or a touch, silent and remote as Ashara’s self, making a lonely island of her tragedy and shutting us all away from her. I watched Beltran, at Hastur’s side, advance to greet her, and saw that she gave him only a formal bow and not an embrace; listened as the bracelets were locked on their wrists.

“Parted in flesh, may you never be so in spirit; may you be forever one,” Hastur said, and all over the room, wives reached for husbands, and lover for lover, to exchange the ritual kiss. Callina was Beltran’s consort, the marriage a legal fact, from the moment Hastur released her hand. I did not turn to see if Dio was near me. The truth of the matter is, I had, at that moment, forgotten her existence, I was so caught up into Callina’s anguish.

The next dance after a handfasting was always, by tradition, a dance for married or pledged couples. Callina, with the privilege of the bride, led Beltran onto the dance floor; but they moved with nothing touching but their fingertips. I saw Javanne and Gabriel move, smiling, onto the floor; the Regent bowed to an elderly dowager, one of Callina’s distant kinswomen, and they moved into the sedate measure.

“Regis,” Linnell said gaily, “are you going to disappoint every unwedded woman in the Domains again tonight?”

“Better disappoint them now than later, kinswoman,” said Regis, smiling. “And I notice you are not dancing—where is our royal cousin?”

“He is ill—someone gave him some punch which had more to it than he knew,” Linnell said, “and Merryl has taken him away, so I have neither kinsman nor lover to dance with me tonight—unless you would like to dance, Lew? You’re more my brother than Merryl ever was,” she added with a touch of annoyance.

“Forgive me, Linnie, I would rather not,” I said, and wondered if I was still a little drunk; I felt uneasy, almost nauseated. Was it only the general unease of a telepath when the crowds are surrounding him too closely?

“Look, even Dyan is dancing with the widow of the old arms-master,” Linnell said, “and Dio with Lerrys—look, isn’t he a marvelous dancer?” I followed her look, saw the brother and sister dancing, closely gathered in each other’s arms like lovers rather than sister and brother, and for a moment I wanted to storm across the floor in outrage, remind Lerrys that Dio was mine… but I felt unable to move. If I tried to dance surely I would fall down, but I had drunk only a very little of that same heavily spiked fruit drink.

Regis said, bowing to Linnell, “I will dance with you as Derik’s surrogate, if you wish for it, cousin. It seems I am Derik’s heir—may his reign be long,” he added, with a wry smile.

“No, I would rather not,” she said, a hand on his arm, “but you may stay and talk with me for this dance… Lew, do you know the man there in the harlequin costume? Who is the woman with him?”

For a moment I could not see the harlequin I had noticed before; then I saw him, dancing with a tall woman with dark-copper hair, wonderful thick curls that cascaded halfway down her back. The whirling movement of the dance suddenly turned them toward me, and—although the woman was masked—suddenly I knew her, knew them both, even behind the hideous harlequin mask.

Thyra! No mask could have concealed her from me… for a moment it seemed that the matrix at my throat burned as with Sharra’s very fire. I stood shocked, unable to move, watching my sworn enemy, and wondering with desperate unease what brought them here, into the very heart of Thendara, with a price on Kadarin’s head and the death sentence from Terran and Comyn at once! I gripped the dagger at my waist with my good hand, wishing I had not encumbered myself with the artificial one. Kadarin and Thyra, boldly dancing together here at the Comyn masked ball…

But now at the conclusion of this dance, all masks were coming off; I tore mine away, using the mechanical hand; the other was firmly gripped on my dagger. Did he think that I would not attack him here because it was in the middle of a ball?

And now I saw that Regis had recognized him too. I took a single step; Regis caught urgently at my arm.

“Steady, Lew,” he muttered. “It’s what he wants you to do, come after him without thinking—”

The matrix at my throat was suddenly alive with flame, and a voice whispered, called in my mind.

… I am here! I am here…all your rage, all the fury of frustrated lust, let it turn on them to serve me, burning, burning…

Sharra! The voice of Sharra, whispering like a frantic ghost in my mind, the fury of all my frustration, leaping up to betray me… Thyra’s eyes, burning into mine, the red flame of her hair seeming to blaze up around her! And suddenly it flared all around her, as Thyra seemed to grow taller, to rise and tower above us into the heights of the ballroom, as I saw Kadarin’s long fine hand, the hand of a chieri, flash and draw the sword, that sword—

It called to me. I had dragged it unwilling through half a Galaxy because I could not leave it behind, and now it summoned me, summoned me… half-aware, I slid my dagger back into its sheath; my place was at Kadarin’s side, lending strength to the Goddess, pouring all my own rage and terror and frustration through it… my hand went to the matrix at my throat. I saw some woman whose name I could not remember staring at me with widening blue eyes— I heard her whisper a name I no longer associated with myself, but she was nothing to me, and a young man with the face of a mortal enemy… Hastur, he was Hastur… the mortal enemy, the first to strike! I felt his hand gripping at my arm and thrust him away with uncanny strength, so that his knees buckled and he spread to the floor; and all this time that pattern of hate and fear, mingled love and loathing, beat in my mind…I took a step, then another, toward where the Goddess flamed above me.

I must return… return to Sharra, return to the immortal who rose in flame above me forever, burn myself in the purging fire… she was there, Marjorie, calling me from within the flames of Sharra, those compelling amber eyes, the cascade of red hair wildly tossing sparks and flame and the smell of burning, as I burned for her with lust and terror…

The one I knew to be my mortal enemy was gripping me now with both hands as I fought my way, step by step, through the cries of the yammering crowd, to where Sharra burned…

“No, damn it, Lew,” he gasped, “You’re not going, if I have to kill you first and give you a clean death…” and he struck at me with the dagger, tearing a line of blood across my good arm. The pain made me waver, come to myself a little, know what was happening.

“Regis—help me,” I heard myself whisper.

“Your matrix! Let me—” Before I could stop him, he snatched out his own dagger, cut the string which held my matrix round my neck; I tensed, in anticipation of agony unendurable… once Kadarin had ripped it away and I had gone into convulsions… but even through the leather bag and the silks I felt the touch—

The form of Sharra wavered, sank… I did not know what Regis was doing, but strand by strand, it seemed that the gripping call of Sharra lessened in my mind. I heard it still, a soft insidious voice whispering in my mind…

Return to me, return, take vengeance on all these who have scorned and despised you… return, return…

…to Darkover and fight for your brother’s rights and your own… but now it was my father’s voice; I had never thought I would be glad to hear that haunting voice in my mind, but now it recalled me wholly to myself, like a plunge into an icy stream. Then that too quieted, and I stood looking at Kadarin and Thyra where they stood together, the Sharra sword in Kadarin’s hand, Thyra’s hair still tossing with the last sparks of the dying flame.

Gabriel broke away from Javanne; made a quick step toward Kadarin, his sword in hand. Perhaps all he saw was the invasion by a wanted man; I never knew whether the Form of Fire had been real or whether anyone but myself had seen it. Kadarin whirled, shoving Thyra before him, as Gabriel shouted for the Guard and the young cadets started flocking toward him from everywhere in the room. I drew my dagger again and started for him too, then stood paralyzed—

The air seemed full of cold shimmering light. Kadarin and Thyra stood frozen, too, and I saw Kathie caught between them.

They did not physically touch her, but something shook her like the grip of some invisible thing with claws; tossed her aside and caught at Linnell. She was in their grip as if she had been bound, hand and foot. I think she screamed, but the very idea of sound had died in the thickening darkness around Kadarin and Thyra. Linnell sagged, held up hideously on empty air; then fell, striking the floor with a crushing impact, as if something had shaken her and then dropped her. I fought toward her, shouting soundless curses, but I could not move, could not really see.

Kathie flung herself down by Linnell. I think she was the only person capable of free movement in that hall. As she caught up Linnell in her arms I saw that the tortured face had gone smooth and free of horror; a moment Linnell lay quiet, soothed, then she struggled with a bone-wrenching spasm, and slackened, a loose, limp small thing with her head lolling on her twin’s breast.

And above her the monstrous Form of Fire grew again for a moment, Kadarin’s face and Thyra’s blazing out from the center… then it all swam away and for a moment that cold and damnable mask I had seen in Ashara’s Tower blazed out and swam before my eyes…

… and then it was gone. Only a little stirring in the air, and Kadarin and Thyra were gone, too; the lights blazed back and I heard Kathie scream, and heard the cries of the crowd as I elbowed my way savagely to Linnell’s side.

She was dead, of course. I knew that even before I laid my hand over Kathie’s in a vain attempt to feel any pulse of life. She was lying, a tumbled, pathetic little heap across Kathie’s lap. Behind her, blackened and charred panels showed where warp and distortion had faded and Kadarin and Thyra were gone. Callina thrust her way through the crowd, and bent over Linnell. Around me I heard the sound of the Festival throng subsiding. Gabriel sent out the Guard that had gathered, in an attempt that I knew would be vain—Kadarin had not gone out of the castle in any recognizable way and searching the grounds would do no good, even if the Terran Legate joined his forces to ours for the man they both wanted. The other people in the crowd were wedging in around us, and I heard that horrible sound of horror and curiosity which runs through a crowd when tragedy strikes. Hastur said something, and people began silently leaving the ballroom. I thought, this is the first time in hundreds of years that this Festival has been interrupted.

Regis was still standing like one of the pillars of the Castle, his face pale, his hand still gripping his matrix. The Hastur Gift. We did not know what it was; but we had seen its power now for the second time.

Callina had not shed a tear. She was leaning on my arm, so numbed with shock that there was not even grief in her eyes; she only looked dazed. My main worry was now to get her away from the inquisitive remnant of the crowd. It was strange that I did not once think of Beltran, even though the marriage-bracelet was still locked on her wrist.

Her lips moved.

“So this was what Ashara intended…” she whispered.

She collapsed and went limp in my arms.

BOOK THREE: The Hastur Gift

CHAPTER ONE

« ^ »

After Lew carried Callina from the ballroom, Regis Hastur’s first thought was of his grandfather. He hurried toward the place where he had last seen Lord Hastur watching the dancers; he found him there, pale and shaken, but uninjured.

“Linnell is dead—” Regis said, and Danvan Hastur put a hand to his heart. He said, gasping, “What of the prince, what of Derik?” He tried to rise, but fell back, and Regis said “Keep still, sir—I’ll see to it.” He beckoned to Danilo, who broke into a run across the floor.

“Stay here,” he said, “See that no one harms the Lord Hastur—”

Danilo opened his mouth to protest; didn’t. He said “A veis ordenes…” and Regis shoved through the crowd, noticing Gabriel moving in on Beltran, who stood motionless, his mouth hanging open.

“Lord Aldaran,” said Gabriel Lanart-Hastur, “I will have your sword, if you please.”

“I? I have done nothing—”

“None the less,” Gabirel said, evenly, “you were once among those who sought to bring Sharra among us. Your sword, sir.” Half a dozen guards, with swords at the ready, moved in on him, and Beltran drew a long breath, looking from guard to guard and evidently calculating his chances; then he shrugged and handed his sword, hilt first, to Gabriel.

“Take him to the Aldaran quarters,” said Gabriel, “and make certain that he does not leave them for any reason whatever, nor on any pretext, until the Regent has spoken with him and satisfied himself of his innocence. Make sure that he has no—” he hesitated, “unauthorized visitors.”

The Prince. I must see what has happened to Derik. Even though he was not in the ballroom, if his shields were down— where, in the name of all the Gods, did Merryl take him?

Regis hurried up the stairs, racing through the long corridors, hallways. In the Elhalyn suite lights were blazing, and he heard a high shrill wailing. He knew, then, that he had come too late. In the main room, Derik was lying half on, half off a divan; Merryl, beside him, was flung across his body as if he had tried, at the last moment, to shield his friend and lord from some unseen menace. He was sobbing; but Derik was motionless and when Regis touched him, already cold. The wailing came from an old woman who had been Derik’s nurse when he was little, and had cared for her sickly charge ever since. Regis looked down sorrowfully at the young man’s body.

Merryl stood up, trying to check his tears. He said, “I don’t know—suddenly he cried out as if he were fighting something away, and fell like this…”

“Was it you, Merryl, who thought it funny to make the prince drunk tonight?”

“Drunk?” Merryl looked up at him in bewilderment. “He was not drunk—he had nothing but some drink made of mixed fruits, so sweet that I could not touch it! He was not—” then comprehension rushed over his face and he stared, only beginning to realize the truth. “Then that was why—Dom Regis, did someone meddle with that drink out of malice?”

“Their malice was worse than they knew,” Regis said grimly, wondering afresh who had played that cruel trick. Lerrys, perhaps, hoping Derik would make a drunken spectacle of himself before Comyn and Terran guests—to re-emphasize that the Domain of Elhalyn was in incompetent hands? If so, he had overreached himself and done murder. Not that Lerrys would have dirtied his hands in doing it himself, but a judicious bribe to one of the dozens of waiters and serving-folk, and it would be done. “If Derik’s shields had been halfway normal, he would have fought, and perhaps conquered, as I did, and Lew—”

Merryl was weeping now, unashamed. Regis had always believed that Merryl had hung around and flattered the prince for his own advantage; now he realized that the youngster had genuinely cared for the prince. And Regis must break more evil news to him.

“I am sorry to have to tell you this—Linnell is dead, too.”

“Little Linnie?” Merryl wiped his eyes, but he looked stunned and grieved. “It doesn’t seem possible. They were both so happy tonight—what happened, Regis?”

Regis found he could hardly speak the name. “The Castle was invaded. Someone tried to summon—” he forced his lips to pronounce the name but it came out only a whisper of horror; the Form of Fire was too new in his mind. “Sharra.”

Merryl said, his voice hard and venomous, “This is the doing of that Alton bastard! I swear I will kill him!”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Regis said. “The—invaders— Kadarin and his crew—were trying to lure Lew back to them, and he fought and was—was wounded.” Again he remembered the blood streaming down Lew’s arm from the wound he himself had given him; but he had no regrets. Something like that had been necessary to bring Lew to himself, to gather his forces so that he might resist Sharra.

I seem to have some power over the Form of Fire. But without Lew I could do nothing.

“Merryl, I must go and tell my grandfather about Prince Derik. You can do nothing more for him now, lad,” he added compassionately, and it did not seem at all strange to call Merryl “lad,” though Merryl was only a year or two younger than himself, “You should go to your sisters.”

“I am not Head of the Domain,” said Merryl, “They will have no use for me.”… abruptly awe swept over his face and he knelt.

“Prince Derik is dead. May your reign be long, Prince Regis of Hastur and Elhalyn!”

“Zandru’s hells!” Regis whispered. So swiftly had everything happened that he had not even realized; what he had always feared had come upon him. Derik had died, young and childless, and he himself, Regis, was nearest the throne. All the implications struck him dumb; he was now superior in rank even to his grandfather, for there was now no reason for a Regency. I am Lord of the Comyn. I, Regis Hastur.

He covered his face with his hands. It was simply too much to take in, and suddenly he realized that the battle with Sharra had left him drained and exhausted, far more than he realized. He thought he would fall to the ground; his knees would not hold him upright. And I am not yet accustomed to the laran I used this night. I used it to free Lew from Sharra, not knowing how or why. Lord of Light! Where will this end?

He said, faltering, searching for words, “Go and—and seek for Lord Hastur, Merryl; I must tell him of Derik’s death—” and some part of him wanted to hide, to run away like a child, for once his grandfather knew this, the process would be inexorable, would roll over him and crush him like one of the great earth-moving machines he had seen on the Terran spaceport. I to rule the Comyn?

“Let me cover him first,” said Merryl. He looked down again at the dead body of the prince; bent and kissed him on the forehead, then took off his own cloak and laid it gently over Derik, covering his face; tucked it around him as if he were comforting a little child who slept. He said, his voice unsteady, “There was more to Derik than most people ever knew,” and Regis thought Derik could have had a worse epitaph.

So many deaths! Lord of Light, where will this end? Marius Alton. Linnell. Derik. Will Sharra reach out and destroy all that is left of the Comyn?

Merryl said, “I am at your orders, my prince,” and went.

By the time the red sun rose over Comyn Castle on that morning after Festival, Derik and Linnell lay side by side in the Chapel of Comyn Castle, together in death as in their lives; Danvan Hastur had locked on their arms the copper marriage bracelets, the catenas they would have worn in just a few days more. Regis felt a poignant sorrow; they were both so young, and they would have been King and Queen of the Comyn. It would have been more just to give Derik the crown he had been denied so long.

I do not want it. But I have never been asked what I want.

The death of Derik, and the accession of Regis to the crown, had been proclaimed in Thendara, but the coronation itself would not take place for some time, and Regis was glad for that. He needed some time to assimilate what had happened.

I am Lord of the Comyn—whatever that may mean in these days of destruction!

“You must name Councillors,” his grandfather had told him; almost the first thing he said, and Regis’s first thought had been: I wish Kennard were alive.

Danvan Hastur was not a powerful telepath, but he had picked that up, He said gently, “So do I, my boy, but somehow you must manage without him. The strongest man within the Comyn is Lord Ardais, and he has always been your friend; he was your cadet-master in the Guards. If you are wise, lad, you will make certain that he is named as one of your first advisers.”

Yes, Regis thought. I suppose Dyan is my friend. I would rather have him friend than enemy, at least. He said something like this to Danilo when they were alone, adding “I hope you will not mind—being paxman to a prince, Dani?”

Ten days ago Danilo would have passed this off with a flippant joke. Now he only looked at Regis seriously and said, “You know that I will do all I can for you. Only I wish this hadn’t happened. I know you don’t want it.”

“I asked grandfather to take charge of the state funeral for Derik and—and Linnell,” Regis said somberly. “It’s my business to see to the living. I don’t suppose Gabriel and his men have been able to find Kadarin—or Spaceforce, either?”

“No; but there’s rioting in the city, Regis, because Spaceforce has come over on the Darkovan side, searching,” said Danilo. “If you don’t order them out, there’s going to be a civil war.”

“The important thing is to find Kadarin,” Regis protested, but Danilo shook his head. “The important thing, just now, is peace in Thendara, Regis, and you know it as well as I do. Tell Lawton to call off his dogs, or Gabriel isn’t going to be able to hold the Guards back. If they’ve made Thendara too hot to hold Kadarin for a few tendays, so much the better— if he can’t poke his nose out into the marketplace without a guardsman or Spaceforce man grabbing him, then we don’t have to worry about him. But we have to get those Terrans out of the Old Town, or, I tell you, there’s going to be war!”

Regis said with a sigh, “It seems to me that we ought to be able to work together, Terran and Darkovan, against a common enemy, as we did over the Trailmen’s fever, last time there was an epidemic. A few Spaceforce men looking for a hunted criminal aren’t hurting anyone in Thendara—”

“But they’re there,” Danilo argued, “and the people of Thendara don’t want them there!”

It still seemed to Regis that the highest priority just now was to catch Kadarin and eliminate the threat that he would try and raise Sharra again. Just the same, he knew that what Danilo said was true.

“I suppose I ought to make it a personal request to the Legate,” he said wearily, “but I have to stay here and settle things among the Comyn. Grandfather—” he broke off, but he knew Danilo followed the words he could not bring himself to say.

Grandfather has aged overnight; I have always known he was very old, but until that Festival Night he had never shown his age.

“Perhaps,” Dani said quietly, “he has borne this burden all these years because he knew Derik could not rule in his place if he gave up the Regency—but now he trusts you to guard the Comyn in his place.”

Regis bowed his head as if this new burden had been piled physically on him, like a heavy weight. I have known all along that this day would come; I have wished that my grandfather did not treat me like a child; and now when he does not, I am afraid to be a grown man in command of myself and others. It was now his decision to make. He said, “Send a message to the Legate, asking him as a personal favor to me—emphasize that, Dani, as a personal favor to me—to withdraw uniformed Spaceforce men from the Old Town, and restrict them to the Trade City. Or better; write it and I’ll sign it, and have it sent by the most prestigious escort you can find.”

Danilo said, with a wavering grin, “We never thought it would come to this when we were together in Nevarsin and I learned to write a better hand than you. Now you can keep me on hand as your private secretary.”

Regis knew what Danilo was trying to say without putting it into words. As Heir to Hastur he had been visible enough, always in the public eye. But he had done his duty to ensure heirs to the Hastur Domain, and for the rest he had told himself, fiercely, I am not the only lover of men in the Domains! But now, as Prince of the Comyn, he would be even more the public representative of the Comyn. Centuries ago, the Hastur-kin had separated the Hastur Domains of Hastur and Elhalyn, allotting to the Elhalyn all the ceremonial and public duties with the crown.

“A crown on a stick, that’s what they want,” he said grimly. “Something they can hang up in the marketplace and bow down to!” He thought, but did not say, that the Domains had effectively been without a King all during the two-and-twenty years of the Regency, ever since the infant Prince Derik was left fatherless, and the Domains had been none the worse for that lack.

“We had better make sure that there are any Domains to rule over,” he said, when the message had been written, “Derik may not have been the only one to die. And whom shall we send with this message?”

“Lerrys?” Danilo suggested. “He knows the Legate personally—”

Regis shook his head. “Lerrys is too much a Terran sympathizer—I’m not sure he’d deliver the message at all,” he said. “Lerrys’s view is that the Terrans have every right to be here since we are a Terran colony. Merryl?”

“Couldn’t trust him to keep his temper,” Danilo replied promptly.

Regis said hesitantly, “I would send Lew Alton; but he was wounded Festival Night—”

And he is personally concerned in this business of Sharra— “I wonder, Danilo; if I asked Lord Ardais to go—”

“I think he would be pleased to carry such a message to the Legate,” Danilo said, “for he knows what it will do to the city, having uniformed Spaceforce about, and he is always eager to keep the people calm.”

“I won’t order him to do it,” said Regis. “I know he does not like to go among Terrans, but he may be willing to go if I ask it personally as Lord Elhalyn—”

And again the tragedy struck him; Derik was older than he was himself, yet Derik had died without so much as a nedestro son to carry on his name. He had loved Linnell and had waited for their marriage, so that Linnell might bear his Heir; and now they were both dead.

And I have never cared so much for any woman. So I have two sons and a daughter, since I had no hesitation in using a woman for that purpose. Gods! What irony!

Yet I shall not share my throne with any woman, at least not for a time, nor until I find one with whom I am content also to share my life.

“I will go and ask Dyan myself,” he said, glancing at the climbing sun, and suddenly aware that he had had no sleep and that he was weary. “He should still be sleeping, but for this he will not mind being wakened.”

But in the Ardais quarters there were only servants, and one of them told Danilo that Lord Ardais had gone out early.

“Do you know where he is?”

“Zandru’s hells, sir, no! Do you think the Lord Ardais tells his comings and goings to the likes of me?”

“Damn! Now I’ll have to hunt all through the Castle for him,” Regis said, wondering whether Dyan had gone to the Guard hall to see if he, an experienced officer, could be of some help to Gabriel, or whether he had left the ballroom earlier on some private errand and was still abed somewhere with a new favorite. If so, he might not know anything of the destruction that had raged in the Comyn!

Had it been only the day before that he had discussed this very possibility—sending Spaceforce into the Old Town of Thendara to find Kadarin? He had advised against it then; but Lawton had that authority, and now Kadarin had appeared actually within the Comyn Castle, to try and lure Lew Alton back to them… had he any right to keep Lawton from finding this man who was wanted for murder, and other crimes, by both Terran and Darkovan?

“Gabriel may know,” he said, “and there are guardsmen at the doors of the Aldaran suite; they may be able to tell us where Gabriel is—in the Guard Hall, or out hunting for our wanted man!”

The suite of rooms allotted in Comyn Castle to the Aldarans had stood empty ever since Regis could remember; it was in a wing of the Castle which Regis had never knowingly entered before. Two big Guardsmen stood outside the door which was bolted shut on the outside. They saluted Regis, and he greeted them politely.

“Darren, Ruyven—I have to speak with my brother-in-law. Do you know if Dom Gabriel is in the Guard Hall, or if he’s gone into the city? I have to locate Lord Ardais—”

“Oh, I can tell you where the Lord Ardais is, sir,” the Guardsman Ruyven said. “He’s in there, talking to Lord Aldaran.”

Regis frowned and said, “I heard Captain Lanart-Hastur give orders that no one should be allowed to speak with Aldaran—”

“I didn’t hear him say that, sir, I only came on at dawn,” Ruyven said, “and anyhow—” he looked down at his boots, but Regis knew perfectly well what the man was thinking; was he supposed to give orders to a Lord of Comyn, and, moreover, one who had been his own superior officer for many years? Regis said, “Never mind, then, Ruyven, but you’ll have to let us in to see him, too.”

When Regis was small, he had been curious about the locked, empty Aldaran apartments. As the Guardsman let him in, he noticed that a dank and empty smell still clung about the walls and the embroidered hangings with the Aldaran double-headed eagle. They found Beltran in the main presence-chamber; someone had brought him some breakfast and he was eating porridge and nut-bread from a tray on his lap. Dyan sat at ease in a nearby chair, drinking something hot from a mug.

He looked up curiously at the younger men, but Beltran grinned widely. Regis had forgotten how much alike he and Lew really were, even through Lew’s scars.

“Well, Regis,” he said, “at last we are even; you came as kinsman to my castle and I imprisoned you—and now I come as kinsman to yours, and you imprison me. I suppose it’s only fair you should have your day.”

It was like Beltran, Regis supposed, to put him immediately on the defensive. He said stiffly, “A word with you, if you please, Lord Ardais.” He was not going to discuss Comyn business with Beltran present.

“Lord Aldaran is party to Comyn business,” Dyan reminded them.

“Not this,” Regis said coldly. “Are you aware, Lord Dyan, that Prince Derik died during the night?”

“Good riddance,” said Dyan.

“Kinsman!” Danilo protested, and Dyan turned fiercely on him.

“Zandru’s hells, must you be such a hypocrite? We all know that Derik was a weakling, about as fit to rule as my three-year-old son! Now, perhaps, there will be some force in the Comyn, and we can talk to these Terrans as they deserve!”

Regis said stiffly, “It will be my business now to talk with the Terrans, Lord Dyan. It was for that I came here—I wish you to act as my embassy to them, with a message—”

Dyan interrupted, “There is only one message I will bear to the Terrans, Lord Regis, and you as a Hastur know what that message will be: get out! Off our world, off our planet, and take your Empire along with you!”

Lord of Light! It is worse than I thought! Dyan went on fiercely, “We made a good start, you and I, Regis, when we destroyed the Terran weapons! Now let us have the courage to follow up that message with a stronger one, aimed directly at Thendara!”

Does he truly believe that I destroyed Beltran’s weapons as a message to the Terrans? Regis said, “Lord Dyan, this is not the place to discuss long-range Comyn policy. At the moment, the Legate has sent Spaceforce into the city; I have written a formal request that they be withdrawn, so that the Guards may do their own work in looking for a wanted criminal— and murderer, or are you not aware that Kadarin’s attack last night cost us Prince Derik and Linnell, and came close to destroying Lord Alton?”

“That would be a smaller loss than any,” said Dyan coldly. “With Derik gone, we have a chance at a show of strength. Your grandfather has played both sides too long, Regis, and the Altons have tried to back him up. Now it is time to make it very clear to the Terrans where we stand, and now we have Beltran on our side, with a stronger message than any…”

Regis realized that he should have known this all along. He said, in a whisper—he could not make his voice work— “Kinsman, are you seriously advocating the use of Sharra against the Terrans?”

“Not advocating; stating a fact,” Dyan said. “Those who do not join with us—” he looked up, gave Regis a hard, unequivocal stare, “are traitors to Comyn, and should, for the sake of our whole world, for the survival of Darkover, be silenced! Zandru’s hells, Regis, don’t you realize this is the only chance for Darkover to survive without becoming what they call us—just another Terran colony?”

“The existence of the Comyn,” Regis said quietly, trying not to show the horror he felt, “is based upon the Compact. Sharra when used as a weapon is in defiance of Compact—”

“And while we go on observing the forever-be-damned Compact,” said Dyan fiercely, “they surround us, they will bury us! We are like rabbithorns before a pack of wolves— and you sit here peacefully saying ‘B-a-a-a’ while the wolves open their jaws! Do you really think that we can fight the Empire with our swords and a scant six dozen Guardsmen?”

“Why do you assume that we need to fight the Empire?”

“Regis, I cannot believe that you, a Hastur, are saying this! Are you going to hand us meekly over to the Terrans?”

“Of course not,” said Regis, “but there has not been a real war on Darkover for generations. My father died in an illegal war with Terran weapons—”

“Isn’t that reason enough to get them right off our world?”

Regis drew a long breath, clenching his fists to keep quiet and not shout out his defiance. He wondered if Dyan was mad, or if he really believed all this. Dyan looked at him and his face softened somewhat. He said, “You have had no sleep; and a lot has happened in this one night. This is neither the time nor the place to discuss what we must do about the Terrans. Have you had anything to eat since last night?”

Regis shook his head, and Beltran said, “Sit down and join us at breakfast, won’t you? We can discuss politics later. Rogan—” he beckoned his servant, “plates for Lord Hastur and Lord Danilo.” And before they knew what had happened, they were seated around the breakfast table, being served porridge and broiled rabbithorn. Regis did not feel hungry, but he knew enough of matrix mechanics to know that last night’s battle with Sharra had left him drained and exhausted. He ate hungrily, while Beltran, putting hostility aside, became the gracious host.

When the Terrans are gone, then we can enforce Compact again without their vicious example—

But if we seriously use Sharra against them, then we must stand, not against the Terrans who are here, but against the whole Terran Empire and all their multitudes of worlds…

And Sharra is not to be tamed thus, it will turn on those who use it, and destroy…

Beltran said aloud, “I don’t wish my cousin of Alton any harm. I would like to make peace with him. His Gift is necessary to the use of Sharra, and he is Tower-trained; he is the safety factor for the use of Sharra, his control and strength. Can you arrange for me to put this to him, Regis?”

“I think it would be no use,” said Regis quietly. “I think he would rather die.”

“That,” said Dyan harshly, “would be his choice, not ours! But if he chooses to stand with the Terrans, then he must take the consequences—”

“No,” said Beltran. “I think he is the only living man who holds the Alton Gift.”

“No,” Dyan said, “there is an Alton child. Lew’s daughter.” Beltran waved that away. “A girl child. It’s a man we need, with Alton strength.”

So I must keep that secret. Dyan, untrained, does not know the nature of his own Gift. He knows he does not have the Ardais Gift…he adopted Danilo because he found the Ardais Gift had passed to Dani through one of Dyan’s father’s nedestro daughters. But he does not know, and he must never know, his own Alton Gift—Regis looked helplessly at Dyan, only now fully aware of what Dyan had always meant to him. He knew Dyan’s cruelty, and yet he had never been able to blame him altogether, knowing what powerful forces drove Dyan; knowing Dyan a haunted man, and a desperately unhappy one.

Dyan is myself, myself as I might all too easily have been. How can I condemn him? But I cannot let him destroy the Domains in loosing this mad business of a Holy War on the Terrans, even if I must kill him—

Last night, forced by bitter necessity, I struck at Lew, who is more than friend, more than brother to me. Now it seems that I must condemn Dyan, who is no more than what I might have been, to a madman’s death. What right have I to do all this?

He set down his fork, feeling that Beltran’s hospitality would choke him. He held himself tightly barriered lest either of the older men pick up even a hint of his thoughts. “Forgive me, vai dom’yn, I have business elsewhere. Danilo, attend me,” he said, rising, and turned away. “We will speak of this at the proper time, Lord Dyan.”

I must see what is left of the Comyn after last night. Perhaps there is nothing left for me to rule!

CHAPTER TWO

« ^ »

Lew Alton’s narrative

The sullen red of another day was dying when I woke; my head throbbed with the half-healed wound Kadarin had given me, and my arm was afire with the long slash from Regis’s dagger. I lay and wondered for a moment if the whole thing had been a delirious nightmare born of concussion. Then Andres came in, and the deep lines of grief in his face told me it was real. He had loved Linnell, too. He came and scowled at me, taking off the bandage on my head and inspecting the stitches, then looked at the wound in the arm.

“I suppose you are the only man on Darkover who can go to a Festival Night ball and come home with something like this,” he grumbled. “What sort of fight was it?”

So he had heard only that Linnell was dead—not of the monstrous visitation of Sharra. The cut hurt, but it was no more than a flesh wound. I’d have trouble using the arm for a while, but I held no resentment; Regis had done the only thing he could, releasing me from the call of Sharra. I said, “It was an accident, he didn’t mean to hurt me,” and let him think what he liked. “Get me something to eat and some clothes. I have to find out what’s happening—”

“You look as if you needed a tenday in bed,” Andres said crossly. Then his very real concern for me surfaced in a harsh, “Lad, I’ve lost two of you! Don’t send yourself after Marius and Linnell! What’s going on that you can’t wait until tomorrow for it?”

I yielded and lay quiet. Somewhere out there Sharra raged, I supposed… but I would know if they came into the Comyn Castle (was I altogether freed? I did not dare look at my matrix to see) and there was nothing to be gained by going out and looking for trouble. I watched Andres grumbling around the room, a soothing sound I remembered from boyhood. When Marius or I had raced our horses at too breakneck a pace and tumbled off, breaking a finger or a collarbone on the way down, he had grumbled in exactly the same way.

Marius and I had never had the boyhood squabbles and fistfights of most brothers I knew; there had been too many years between us. By the time he was out of pinafores and able to assert himself, I was already grown and into the cadet corps. I had only begun to know what kind of man my brother was, and then he was gone from me, the furthest distance of all. I had dragged him, too, into the inexorable fates pursuing me. But at least he had had a clean death, a bullet through the brain, not the death in fire that waited for me.

For now that Kadarin was loose with the Sharra sword, I knew how I would die, and made up my mind to it. Ashara’s plan, and the help of Regis Hastur’s new and astonishing Gift, which seemed somehow to hold power over Sharra, might destroy the Sharra matrix; but I knew perfectly well that I would go with it into destruction.

Well, that was what had awaited me for all these years, bringing me back to Darkover at the appointed time, to the death appointed, which I should have shared with Marjorie.

We had planned our death…I remembered that morning in Castle Aldaran when, hostages to the destruction Sharra was sowing in the country round, showering on the Terran spaceport in Caer Donn, I had been allowed to waken from the drugs that had kept me, passive prisoner, chained to the destruction and feeding power into Sharra. I never knew why I had been allowed to come free of the drugs; certainly it had not been any lingering tenderness on Kadarin’s part for either of us. But Marjorie and I had been prepared to die… knew we must die in closing the gateway into this world that was Sharra. And so she and I, together, had smashed the gateway…

But then I, using all the power of that matrix, had taken her, and the Sword, and flung us through space bodily—the Terrans called it teleportation, and I had never done it before or since—to Arilinn; where Marjorie had died from her terrible burns, and I…

… I had survived, or some part of me had survived, and all these years had despised myself because I had not followed her to death. Now I knew why I had been spared: Kadarin and Thyra still lived, and somehow they would have recovered the matrix and ravaged Darkover again with its fire. This time there would be no respite; and when Sharra was destroyed, none of us would be left alive. And so I must set my affairs in order.

I called Andres back to me, and said, “Where is the little girl?”

“Rella—that’s the cook’s helper—looked after her today, and put her to bed in the room Marius had when he was a little tyke,” Andres said.

“If I live, I may be able to take her to Armida,” I said, “but if anything should happen to me—no, foster-father, listen; nothing’s certain in this life. Now that my father and brother are gone—you have served us all faithfully for a quarter of a century. If something should happen to me, would you leave Darkover?”

“I don’t know. I never thought about it,” the old man said. “I came here with Dom Kennard when we were young men, and it’s been a good life; but I think I might go back to Terra in the end.” He added, with a mirthless grin, “I’ve wondered what it would be like, to be under my own blue sky again, and have a moon like a moon ought to be, not those little things.” He pointed out the window at the paling face of Idriel, greenish like a gem through water.

“Bring me something to write on.” When he complied, I scribbled with my good hand, folded the paper and sealed it.

“I can’t leave Armida to you,” I said. “I suppose Gabriel will have it after me; it’s in the Alton Domain. I would if I could, believe me. But if you take this to the Terran Legate in the Trade City, this will take you to Terra, and I’d rather you would foster Marja yourself than turn her over to Gabriel’s wife.” Domna Javanne Hastur has never liked me; no doubt she would do her best by Gabriel’s kinsman, but it would be a cold and dutiful best; and Andres, at least, would care for my daughter for my father’s sake and Linnell’s if not for mine. “My mother—and my father after her—owned some land there; it had better go to you, then.”

He blinked and I saw tears filling his eyes, but all he said was, “God forbid I should ever have to use it, vai dom. But I’ll do my best for the little girl if anything happens. You know I’d guard her with my life.”

I said soberly, “You might have to.” I did not know why, but I was filled suddenly with icy shivers; my blood ran cold in my veins, and for a moment, even in the dying light which turned the whole room crimson, it seemed that blood lay over the stones around me. Is this then the place of my death? Only a moment, and it was gone. Andres went to the window, drew the curtains with a bang.

“The bloody sun!” he said, and it sounded like a curse. Then he tucked the paper I had given him, without looking at it, into a pocket, and went away.

That was settled. Now there was only Sharra to face. Well, it must come when it would. Tomorrow Katie and I would ride to Hali, and the plan I had made, for finding the Sword of Aldones and using this last weapon against Sharra, would either succeed or it would fail. Either way, I would probably not see another sunset. My head was afire with the stitches in my forehead. Scars to match those Kadarin had made on my face… well, there’s an old saying that the dead in heaven is too happy to care what happens to his corpse, be it beautiful or ugly, and the dead in hell has too much else to worry about! As for me, I had never believed in either heaven or hell; death was no more than endless nothingness and darkness.

Yet it seemed I could hear again my father’s last cry, directly to my mind— Return to Darkover and fight for your rights and your brother’s! This is my last command… and then, past that, as the life was leaving him, that last cry of joy and tenderness:

Yllana! Beloved—!

Had he, at the last moment, seen something beyond this life, had my half-remembered mother been waiting for him at that last gateway? The cristoforos believe something like that, I know; Marjorie had believed. Would Marjorie be waiting for me beyond Sharra’s fire? I could not, dared not, let myself think so. And if it were so—I let myself smile, a sour little smile—what would we do when Dio turned up there? But she had already loosed her claim on me… if love were the criterion, perhaps she would seek Lerrys beyond the gates of death. And what of those husbands or wives given in marriage who hated their spouses, married out of duty or family ties or political expediency, so that married life was a kind of hell and death a merciful release, would any sane or just God demand that they be tied together in some endless afterlife as well? I dismissed all this as mad rubbish and tried, through the fierce pain in my head and the fiery throbbing of my wounded arm, to compose myself for sleep.

The last red light dimmed, faded and was gone. A chink of the curtains showed me pallid greenish moonlight, lying like ice across my bed; it looked cool, it would cool my fever… there was a step and a rustle and soft whisper.

“Lew, are you asleep?”

“Who’s there?”

The dim light picked out a gleam of fair hair, and Dio, her face as pale as the pallid moon, looked down at me. She turned and pulled the curtains open where Andres had closed them, letting the moonlight flood the room and the waning moons peep over her shoulder.

The chill of the moonlight seemed to cool my feverish face. I even wondered, incuriously, if I had fallen asleep and was dreaming she was there, she seemed so quiet, so muted. Her eyes were swollen and flushed with tears.

“Lew, your face is so hot…” she murmured, and after a minute she came and laid something cold and refreshing on my brow. “Do you mean they left you alone here like this?”

“I’m all right,” I said. “Dio, what’s happened?”

“Lerrys is gone,” she whispered, “gone to the Terrans, he has taken ship and swears he will never return… he tried to get me to come with him, he… he tried to force me, but this time I would not go… he said it was death to stay here, with the things that were coming for the Comyn…”

“You should have gone with him,” I said dully. I could not protect Dio now, nor care for her, with Sharra raging and Kadarin prowling like a wild beast, Thyra at his side, ready to drag me back into that same corner of hell…

“I will not go when others must stay and fight,” she said. “I am not such a coward as that…” but she was weeping. “If he truly feels we are a part of the Empire, he should have stayed and fought for that…”

“Lerrys was never a fighter,” I said. Well, neither was I, but I had been given no choice; my life was already forfeit. But I had no comfort for Dio now. I said softly, “It is not your fight, either, Dio. You have not been dragged into this thing. You could make a life for yourself elsewhere. It’s not too late.”

Lerrys was one of the hypersensitive Ridenow; the Ridenow Gift had been bred into the Comyn, to sense these other-dimension horrors in the Ages of Chaos; a Gift obsolete now, when the Comyn no longer ranged through space and time as legend said they had done in the heyday of the Towers. As those who fight forest-fire keep cagebirds to tell when the poison gases and smoke are growing too dangerous for living things—because the cagebird will die of the poisons before men are aware of them—so the Ridenow served to warn Comyn less sensitive than they of the presence of forces no man could tolerate. I was not surprised that he had fled from Darkover now…

I only wished I could do the same!

“Dio, you shouldn’t be here, at this hour—”

“Do you think I care about that?” she said, and her voice was thick with tears. “Don’t send me away, Lew. I don’t—I don’t—I won’t ask anything of you, but let me stay here with you for tonight—”

She lay beside me, her curly head against my shoulder, and I tasted salt when I kissed her. And suddenly I realized that if I had changed, Dio had changed no less. The tragedy of that thing in the hospital, which should have been our son, was her tragedy too; more hers than mine, for she had borne it in her body for months; yet I had been distraught with my own selfish grief, and left no room for her. She had come into my life when I had thought it was over forever, and given me a year of happiness, and I owed it to her to remember the happiness, not the horror and tragedy at the end.

I whispered, holding her close, “I wish it had been different. I wish I had had—more for you.”

She kissed my scarred cheek, with a tenderness which somehow drew us closer than the wildest passion. “Never mind, Lew,” she said softly into the darkness, “I know. Sleep, my love, you’re weary and wounded.”

And after a moment I felt that she was fast asleep in my arms; but I lay there, wakeful, my eyes burning with regret. I had loved Marjorie with the first fire of an untried boy, all flame and desire; we had never known what we would have grown into, for Marjorie had had no time at all. But Dio had come to me when I was a man, grown through suffering into the capacity for real love, and I had never understood, I had let her walk away from me in the first upheaval. The shared tragedy should have drawn us closer, and I had let it drive us apart.

If only I could live, I could somehow make it up to Dio, if I only had time to let her know how much I loved her…

But it is too late; I must let her go, so that she will not grieve too much for me—

But for tonight I will pretend that there is something beyond morning, that she and I and Marja can find a world somewhere, and that Sharra’s fire will burn out harmlessly before the mingling of the Sword of Aldones and the Hastur Gift…I half-knew that I was already dreaming, but I lay holding Dio sleeping in my arms until at last, near dawn, I fell asleep too.

Red sunlight woke me, and the closing of a door somewhere in the Alton suite. Dio—had she really been there? I was not sure; but the curtains she had opened to the moonlight were open to the sun, and there was a fine red-gold hair lying on my pillow. The pain in head and wounded arm had subsided to the dullest of aches; I sat up, knowing that it was time to act.

While I dressed for riding, I considered. Surely, this day or the next, what was left of the Comyn would ride to Hali for the state funeral for Linnell—and for Derik. Perhaps it would be better to ride with them, not to attract attention, and then to slip away toward the rhu fead…

No. There was no time for that. I had loved Linnell and she had been my foster-sister, but I could not wait to speak words of tenderness and regret over her grave. I could not help her now, and either way, she had gone too far to care whether or not I was there to speak at her burying. For Linnell I could only try to ensure that the land she had loved was not ravaged by Sharra’s fires. It might be that we could do something for Callina too; surely Beltran, who had been part of the original circle who had tried to raise Sharra, would die with us when we closed that gateway for the last time. And then Callina too would be freed.

I went in search of Callina, and found her in the room where I had seen Linnell playing her rryl, that night before we had gone to Ashara’s Tower. Callina was sitting before the harp, her hands lax in her lap, so white and still that I had to speak to her twice before she heard me; and then she turned a dead face to me, a face so cold and distant, so like Ashara’s, that I was shocked and horrified. I shook her, hard, and finally slapped her face; at that she came back, life and anger in her pale cheeks.

“How dare you!”

“Callina, I’m sorry—you were so far away, I couldn’t make you hear me—you were in a trance—”

“Oh, no—” she gasped, her hands flying to cover her mouth in consternation, “Oh, no, it can’t be…” she swallowed and swallowed again, fighting tears. She said, “I felt I could not bear my grief, and it seemed to me that Ashara could give me peace, take away grief… grief and guilt, because if I had not—not used the screen with you, not found that—that Kathie girl, Linnell would have been alive—”

“You don’t know that,” I said harshly. “There’s no way of telling what might have happened when Kadarin drew—that sword. Kathie might have died instead of Linnell; or they might both have died. Either way, don’t blame yourself. Where is Kathie?”

“I don’t want to see her,” Callina said shakily. “She is like—it’s like seeing Linnell’s ghost, and I cannot bear it—” and for a moment I thought she would go far away into the trance state again.

“There’s no time for that, Callina! We don’t know what Beltran, or Kadarin, may be planning,” I said. “We don’t have much time; things could start up again at any moment.” How had I been able to sleep last night, with this hanging over us? But at least now I was strong enough for what I must do. “Where is Kathie?”

At last Callina sighed and showed me the way to where Kathie slept. She was lying on a couch, awake, half naked, scanning a set of tiles, but she started as I came in, and caught a blanket around her. “Get out! Oh—it’s you again! What do you want?”

“Not what you seem to be expecting,” I said dryly. “I want you to dress and ride with us. Can you ride?”

“Yes, certainly. But why—”

I rummaged behind a panel, finding some clothes I had seen Linnell wear. It suddenly outraged me that these lengths of cloth, these embroideries, should still be intact, with Linnell’s perfume still in their folds, when my foster-sister lay cold in the chapel at the side of her dead lover. I flung them, almost angrily, across the couch.

“These will do for riding. Put them on.” I sank down to wait for her, was recalled, by her angry stare, to memory of Terran taboos. I rose, actually reddening; how could Terran women be so immodest out of doors and so prudish within? “I forgot. Call me when you’re ready.”

A peculiar choked sound made me turn back. She was staring helplessly at the armful of clothing, turning the pieces this way and that. “I haven’t the faintest notion how to get into these things.”

“After what you were just thinking at me,” I said stiffly, “I’m certainly not going to offer to help you.”

She blushed too. “And anyway, how could I ride in a long skirt?”

“Zandru’s hells, girl, what else would you wear? They are Linnell’s riding-clothes; if she rode in them, you certainly can.” Linnell had worn them to ride to Marius’s funeral.

“I’ve never worn anything like this for riding, and I’m certainly not going to start now,” she blazed. “If you want me to ride somewhere on a horse, you’re going to have to get me some decent clothes!”

“These clothes belonged to my foster-sister; they are perfectly decent.”

“Damn it, get me some indecent ones, then!”

I laughed. I had to. “I’ll see what I can do, Kathie.”

The Ridenow apartments were almost deserted this early, except for a servant mopping the stone floor, and I was glad; I had no desire to walk in upon Lord Edric. It occurred to me that Dio and I had married without the permission of her Domain Lord.

Freemate marriage cannot be dissolved after the woman has borne a child, except by mutual consent.

But that was Darkovan law. Dio and I had married by the law of the Empire… why was I thinking this, as if there were still time to go back and mend what had gone astray between us? At least I would see her once more. I asked the servant if Domna Diotima would see me, and after a moment, Dio, in a long woolly dressing-gown, came sleepily out into the main room. Her face lighted when she saw me; but there was no time for that. I explained my predicament, and she must have read the rest in my face and manner.

“Kathie? Yes, I remember her from—from the hospital,” she said, “I still have my Terran riding things, the ones I wore on Vainwal; she should be able to wear them.” She giggled, then broke off. “I know it’s not really funny. I just can’t help it, thinking—never mind; I’ll go and help her with them.”

“And I’ll go down and see if I can find horses for us,” I said, and went down, swiftly, by an old and little-known stairway, to the Guard hall. Fortunately there was a Guardsman there who had known me when I was a cadet.

“Hjalmar, can you find horses? I must ride to Hali.”

“Certainly, sir. How many horses?”

“Three,” I said after a moment, “one with a lady’s saddle.” Kathie might ride like Dio, astride and in breeches like some Free Amazon, but Callina certainly would not. I told him where to bring them, and went back to find Kathie neatly dressed in the tunic and breeches I had seen Dio wear.

I was happy then. But I did not know it, and now it is too late—now and forever.

Some Terran poet said that—that the saddest words in any language are always too late.

The door thrust suddenly open and Regis came in. He said, “Where are you going? I’d better come with you.”

I shook my head. “No. If anything happens—if we don’t make it—you’re the only one with any strength against Sharra.”

“That is exactly why I must come with you,” Regis said. “No, leave the women here—”

“Kathie at least must come,” I said. “We are going to Hali, to the rhu fead,” and added, when he still looked confused, “It’s possible that Kathie may be the only person on this world who can reach the Sword of Aldones.”

His eyes widened. He said, “There’s something I should know… Grandfather told me once—no, I can’t remember.” His brow ridged in angry concentration. “It could be important, Lew!”

It could, indeed. The Sword of Aldones was the ultimate weapon against Sharra. And Regis seemed, of late, to have some curious power over Sharra. But whatever it was, we had no time to waste while he tried to remember.

Regis warned, “If Dyan sees you, you’ll be stopped. And Beltran has a legal right—if no other—to stop Callina. How are you going to get out of the Castle?”

I led them to the Alton rooms. The Altons, generations and generations ago, had designed this part of the castle, and they had left themselves a couple of escape routes. It occurred to me to wonder why they had guarded themselves against their fellow Comyn, in those days; then I grinned with mirth. This was certainly not the first time, in the long history of the Comyn, that powerful clan had warred against clan.

It might be the last, though.

I forced my mind away from that, searching out certain elegant designs in the parquetry flooring. My father had once shown me this escape route, but he had not troubled to teach me the pattern. I frowned, tried to sound, delicately, the matrix lock that led to the secret stairway.

Fourth level, at least! I began to wonder if I would need to hunt up my old matrix mechanic’s kit and perform the mental equivalent of picking the lock. I shifted my concentration, just a little…

… Return to Darkover… fight for your brother’s rights and your own—

My father’s voice; yet for the first time I did not resent it. In that final, unknowing rapport he had forced on me, I was sure there had been some of his memories—how else could I account for the sudden, emotional way I had reacted to Dyan? Now I stood with my toes in the proper pattern, and, not stopping to think how to do it, pushed against something invisible.

… to the second star, sidewise and through the labyrinth…

My mind sought out the pattern; halfway through the flickering memory that was not mine faded into nonsense, evaporated with the sting of lemon-scent in the air, but I was deeply into the pattern now and I could unravel the final twist of the lock. Beneath me the floor tilted; I jumped, scrabbled for safety as a section of the flooring moved downward on invisible machinery, revealing a hidden stair, dark and dusty, that led away downward.

“Stay close to me,” I warned, “I’ve never been down here before, though I saw it opened once.” I gestured them downward on the dusty stair; Kathie wrinkled her nose at the musty smell, and Callina held her skirts fastidiously close to her body, but they went. Regis and Dio followed us. Behind us the square of light folded itself, disappeared.

“I wish my old great-great-whatever-great grandfather had provided a light,” I fretted, “it’s as dark in here as Zandru’s—” I cut off the guard-room obscenity, substituted weakly “pockets.” I heard Dio snicker softly and knew she had been in rapport with me.

Callina said softly, “I can make light, if you need it.”

Kathie cried out in sudden fright as a green ball of pallid fire grew in Callina’s palm, spread like phosphorscence over her slender six-fingered hands. I was familiar with the over-light, but it was an uncanny sight to see, as the Keeper spread out her hands, the pallid glow leading us downward. The extended fingers broke through sticky webs, and once I fancied that gleaming little eyes followed us in the darkness, but I closed my eyes and mind to them, watching for every step under my feet. We crowded so hard on Callina’s heels that she had to warn us, in a soft, preoccupied voice, “Be careful not to touch me.” Once Kathie slipped on the strangely sticky surfaces, fell a step or two, jarringly, before I could catch and steady her. I felt with my good hand along the wall, ignoring what might be clinging there, and once the stair jogged sharply to the right, a sharp turn; without Callina’s pale light we would have stepped off into nothingness and fallen—who knows into what depths? As it was, one of us jarred a pebble loose and we heard it strike below, after a long time, very far away. We went on, and I felt my blood pounding hard in my temples. Damn it, I hoped I would never have to come down here again, I would rather face Sharra and half of Zandru’s demons!

Down, and down, and endlessly down, so that I felt half the day must be passing as we threaded the staircase and the maze into which it led; but Callina led the way, with dainty fastidious steps, as if she were treading a ballroom floor.

At last the passageway ended in a solid, heavy door. The light faded from Callina’s hands as she touched it, and I had to wrestle with the wooden bar which closed it. I could not draw it back one-handed, and Dio threw her weight against the bar; it creaked open, and light assaulted eyes dilated by the darkness of that godforgotten tunnel. I squinted through it and discovered that we were standing in the Street of Coppersmiths, exactly where I had told Hjalmar to bring the horses. At the corner of the street, through the small sound of many tiny hammers tapping on metal, there was a place where horses were shod and iron tools mended, and I saw Hjalmar standing there with the horses.

He recognized Callina, though she was folded in an ordinary thick dark cloak—I wondered if she had borrowed the coarse garment from one of her servants, or simply gone into the servants’ quarters and taken the first one she found?

“Vai domna, let me assist you to mount…”

She ignored him, turning to me, and awkwardly, one-handed, I extended my arm to help her into the saddle. Kathie scrambled up without help, and I turned to Dio.

“Do you know where you are? How are you going to get back?”

“Not that way,” she said fervently. “Never mind, I can find my way.” She gestured at the castle, which seemed to be very high above us on the slopes of the city; we had indeed come a long way. “I still feel I ought to come with you—”

I shook my head. I would not drag Dio into this, too. She held out her arms but I pretended not to see. I could not bear farewells, not now. I said to Regis, “See that Dio gets back safely!” and turned my back on them both. I hoisted myself awkwardly into the saddle, and rode away without looking back, forcing myself to concentrate on guiding the horse’s hoofs over the cobbled street.

Out of the Street of Coppersmiths; out through the city gates, unnoticed and unrecognized; and upward, on the road leading toward the pass. I looked down once, saw them both lying beneath me, Terran HQ and Comyn Castle, facing one another with the Old Town and the Trade City between them, like troops massed around two warring giants. I turned my back resolutely on them both, but I could not shut them away.

They were my heritage; both of them, not one alone, and try as I might, I could not see the coming battle as between Terran and Comyn, but Darkover against Darkover, strife between those who would loose ancient evil in our world in the service of Comyn, and those who would protect it from that evil.

I had allied myself with the ancient evil of Sharra. It mattered nothing that I had tried to close the gateway; it was I who had first summoned Sharra, misusing the laran which was my heritage, betraying Arilinn which had trained me in the use of that laran. Now I would destroy that evil, even if I destroyed myself with it.

Yet for the moment, breathing the icy wind of the high pass, the snow-laden wind that blew off the eternal glacier up there, I could forget that this might be my last ride. Kathie was shivering, and I took off my cloak and laid it over her shoulders as we rode side by side. She protested, “You’ll freeze!” but I laughed and shook my head.

“No, no—you’re not used to this climate; this is shirtsleeve weather to me!” I insisted, wrapping her in the folds. She clutched it round her, still shivering. I said, “We’ll be through the pass soon, and it’s warmer on the shores of Hali.”

The red sun stood high, near the zenith; the sky was clear and cloudless, a pale and beautiful mauve-color, a perfect day for riding. I wished that there were a hawk on my saddle, that I was riding out from Arilinn, hunting birds for my supper. I looked at Callina and she smiled back at me, sharing the thought, for she made a tiny gesture as if tossing a verrin hawk into the air. Even Kathie, with her glossy brown curls, made me think of riding with Linnell in the Kilghard Hills when we were children. Once we had ridden all the way to Edelweiss, and been soundly beaten, when we came home after dark, by my father; only now I realized that what had seemed a fearful whipping to children twelve and nine years old, had in reality been a few half-playful cuffs around the shoulders, and that father had been laughing at us, less angry than grateful that we had escaped bandits or banshee-birds. I remembered now that he had never beaten any of us seriously. Though once he threatened, when I failed to rub down and care for a horse I had ridden, leaving the animal to a half-trained stableboy, that if I neglected to see to my mounts, next time I too should have no supper and sleep on the floor in my wet riding-clothes instead of having a hot bath and a good bed waiting.

Harsh as he had been—and there had been times when I hated him—it seemed that only now, facing my own death, was I wholly aware of how he had loved us, of how all his own plans for us had fallen into ruin. I started to say, “Linnie, do you remember,” and remembered that Linnell was dead and that the girl who rode before me, clutching a cloak around her with Linnell’s very gesture, was a stranger, a Terran stranger.

But I looked past her at Callina, and our eyes met. Callina was real, Callina was all the old days at Arilinn, Callina was the time when I had been happy and doing work I loved in the Towers. The copper bracelet on her left wrist, sign of a tie with Beltran, was a joke, an obscenity, entirely irrelevant. I let myself dream of a day when I would tear it from her wrist, fling it in Beltran’s face…

Callina was a Keeper, never to be touched, even with a lustful thought… but now she was riding at my side, and she raised her face to mine, pale and smiling. And I thought; Keeper no more; the Comyn married her off to Beltran as they would dispose of a brood mare, but if she can be given to Beltran, they cannot complain if—after she is properly widowed, for while I lived Beltran would not take her as his wife—if afterward she gives herself to me.

And then…Armida, and the Kilghard Hills… and our own world waiting for us. She smiled at me, and for a moment my heart turned over inside me at that smile; then I forced myself to remember. The way out led through Sharra; and it was very doubtful that I would be alive to see the sun set. But at least Beltran, who had, like myself, been sealed to Sharra, would go with me into the darkness. But still her eyes sought mine, and against all conceivable sanity, I was happy.

Below us, now, lay the pale shores of Hali, with the long line of trees fading in the mist. Here, so the legend said, the Son of Aldones had fallen to Earth, and lay on the shores of the Lake, so that the sands were evermore mirrored and shimmering…I looked on the pale glimmer of the sands of the shores, and knew that the sands were of some gleaming stone, mica or garnet, beaten into sand by the waves of a great inland sea which had washed here long before this planet spawned life. Yet the wonder remained; along these shimmering shores Hastur had lain, and here came Camilla the Damned, and the Blessed Cassilda, foremother of the Comyn, and ministered to him…

The shadows were lengthening; the day was far advanced, and one of the moons, great violet-shining Liriel, was just rising over the lake, waning a little from the full. We had perhaps two hours before sunset, and I discovered I did not like to think about riding back to Thendara in the darkness. Well, we would ride that colt when he was grown to bear a saddle; our task now was within the rhu fead, the old chapel which was the holy place of the Comyn.

It rose before us, a white, pale-gleaming pile of stone. Once there had been a Tower here; it had fallen in the Ages of Chaos, burned to the ground in those evil old days by a laran weapon next to which the Sharra matrix was a child’s toy. We reined in the horses, near the brink of the Lake, where mist curled up whitely along the shore. The sparse pinkish grass thinned out in the sands. I kicked loose a pebble; it sank, slowly turning over and over, through the cloud-surface.

“That’s not water, is it?” Kathie said, shaken. “What is it?”

I did not know. Hali was the nearest of the half-dozen cloud-lakes whose depths are not water, but some inert gas… it will even sustain life; once I walked for a little while in the depths of that Lake, looking at the strange creatures, neither fish nor bird, which swam, or flew, in that cloud-water. Legend said that once these Lakes had been water like any other, and that in the Ages of Chaos, some sorcerer, working with the laran of that day, had created them, with their peculiar gaseous structure, and the curious mutated fishbirds which flew or swam there… I thought that just about as likely as the ballad which tells how the tears of Camilla had fallen into the water and turned them into cloud when Hastur chose Cassilda for his consort.

This was no time for children’s tales and ballads!

Kathie said in confusion, “But—but surely I have been here before—”

I shook my head. “No. You have some of my memories, that’s all.”

“All!” Her voice held a note of hysteria. I said, “Don’t worry about it,” and patted her wrist, clumsily. “Here, come this way.”

Twin pillars rose before us, a twinkling rainbow glimmering like frost between them; the Veil, like the Veil at Arilinn, to keep out anyone not allied to Comyn. If Kathie’s genes were identical to Linnell’s, she should be able to pass this Veil—but it was not a physical test alone, but a mental one; no one without laran of the Comyn kind… and Kathie had been brought here because of her own immunity to that Comyn mental set.

“Even blocked,” I said to Kathie, “it would strip your mind bare. I’ll have to hold your mind completely under mine.” I seemed to speak out of some strange inner surety, knowing precisely what I should do, and in a small corner of my mind, I wondered at myself. She shrank away from the first touch of my mind, and I warned tonelessly, “I must. The Veil is a kind of forcefield, attuned to the Comyn brain; you wouldn’t survive two seconds of it.”

I bent and picked her up bodily. “It won’t hurt me; but don’t fight me.”

I made contact with her mind; swamped it, forced resistance down—somewhere at the back of my mind, I remembered how I had feared to do this to Marius. It was a form of rape, and I shrank from it; but I told myself that without this overshadowing she could not survive—

The first law of a telepath is that you do not enter any unwilling mind—

But she had consented; I told myself that, and without further waiting, I covered the last resistance and her mind disappeared, completely held down within my own and concealed. Then I stepped through the trembling rainbow…

A million little needles prickled at me, nameless force spitting me through and through like a strangely penetrating rain— I was inside, through the Veil. I set Kathie down on her feet and withdrew, as gently as I could, but she slumped, nerveless, to the floor. Callina knelt, chafing her hands, and after a moment she opened her eyes.

There were doors and long passages before us, hazy as if the rhu fead were filled with the same gaseous cloud as was the Lake; I almost expected to see the strange fishbirds swimming there. Here and there were niches filled with things so strange I could not imagine them; behind a rainbow of colors, I saw a bier where lay a woman’s body—or a wax effigy—or a corpse, I could not tell; only the long pale reddish hair; and it seemed to me that the woman’s body was too realistic for any unreality, that her breast seemed to rise and fall softly as she slept; yet the rainbow shimmer was undisturbed, she had slept there or lain there in unchanging, incorruptible death for thousands of years. Behind another of the rainbows was a sword lying on a great ancient shield—but the hilt and shield glimmered with colors and I knew it was no simple weapon and that it was not what we sought. Regis should have come with us, I thought, how will I know the Sword of Aldones when I find it?

“I will know,” said Callina quietly. “It is here.”

Abruptly the passage angled, turned, and opened up into a white-vaulted chapel, with something like an altar at the far end, and above it, done in the style of the most ancient mosaics, a portrayal of the Blessed Cassilda, with a starflower in her hand. In a niche in one of the walls was another of the trembling rainbows, but as I drew near, I felt the sting of pain, and knew this was one of those protected entirely from Comyn— Now was the time to see if Kathie could actually reach these guarded things. Callina put out curious hands; they jerked back of themselves. As if she had heard my thoughts—and perhaps she did—Kathie asked, “Are you still touching my mind?”

“A little.”

“Get out. All the way…”

That made sense; if this forcefield was adjusted to repel the Comyn, then the slightest touch of my mind would endanger her. I withdrew entirely, and she began to walk swiftly toward the rainbow; passed through it.

She disappeared into a blur of darkening mist. Then a blaze of fire seared up toward the ceiling—I wanted to cry out to her not to be afraid; it was only a trick… an illusion.

But even my voice would not carry through the forcefleld against Comyn. A dim silhouette, she passed on and through the fire; perhaps she did not know it was there.

Then there was a crash of thunder that rolled through the chapel and jarred the floor as if with earthquake. Kathie darted back through the rainbow. In her hand, she held a sword.

So the Sword of Aldones was a real sword, after all, long and gleaming and deadly, and of so fine a temper that it made my own look like a child’s leaden toy. In the hilt, through a thin layer of insulating silk, blue jewels gleamed and sparkled.

It was so much like the Sharra sword that I could not keep back a shudder as I looked at it. But the Sharra sword now seemed like an inferior forgery, a dull copy of the glorious thing I looked on. It was shrouded in a scabbard of fine dyed leather; words, graved in fine embroidery with copper thread, writhed across the scabbard.

“What does it say?” Kathie asked, and I bent to read the words, but they were in so ancient a dialect of casta that I could not make them out, either. Callina glanced at them, and after a moment translated.

This sword shall be drawn only when all else is ended for the children of Hastur, and then the unchained shall be bound.

Well, one way or the other, the world we had known was at an end; and Sharra unchained. But I would not venture to draw forth the sword from the scabbard. I remembered what had happened to Linnell when she was confronted with her duplicate, and I—I had been sealed to the Sharra matrix; even now I did not think I was free, not entirely.

So we had the Sword of Aldones; but I still did not know how it could be used. The unchained shall be bound. But how?

A tingle of power flowed, not unpleasantly, up my arm; as if the sword wished to be drawn, to leap from its scabbard…

“No,” Callina warned, and I relaxed, letting my breath go, shoving the sword back into the leather; I had drawn it only a few inches.

“I’ll take it,” she said, and I sighed with relief. Callina was a Keeper; she knew how to handle strange matrixes. And while the Sharra sword was a concealment for a great and powerful matrix, the Sword of Aldones was—I sensed this without knowing how I knew—itself a matrix, and dangerous to handle. If Callina felt capable of that risk, I was not going to dispute with her about it.

“That’s that,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”

The last light of the sun was setting as we came out of the rhu fead. The women went ahead of me; there was no need, now, for me to safeguard Kathie. The Veil was only to screen against those not of Comyn blood getting into the chapel; it had never occurred to my forefathers in the Ages of Chaos to guard against anyone getting out. I lingered, half wanting to explore the strange things here.

Then Kathie cried out; and I saw the dying sunlight glint on steel. Two figures, dark shapes against the light, blurred before my eyes; then, I recognized Kadarin, sword in hand, and at his side a woman, slender and vital as a dark flame.

She did not, now, look much like Marjorie; but even so, I knew Thyra. Kathie started back against me; I put her gently aside to face my sworn enemy.

“What do you want?”

I was playing for time. There was only one thing Kadarin could want from me now, and my blood turned to ice with the horror of that memory, and around my neck my matrix began to blaze and to pulse with fire…

Come to me, return to me in fire… and I will sweep away all your hatred and lust, all your fears and anguish in my own flame, raging unchained, burning, burning forever…

“Hiding behind women again?” Kadarin taunted. “Well, give me what the Keeper carries, and perhaps I shall let you go… if you can!” He flung back his head and laughed, that strange laugh that carried echoes of a falcon’s cry. He did not look like a man now, or anything human; his eyes were cold and colorless, almost metallic, and his colorless hair had grown long, flying about his head; his hands on his sword were long and thin, almost more like talons than fingers. And yet there was a strange beauty to him as he stood with his head flung back, laughing that crazy laughter. “Why don’t you make it easy for yourself, Lew? You know you’ll do what we want in the end. Give me that—” he pointed to the Sword of Aldones, “and I’ll let the women go free, and you won’t have that to torment yourself with…”

“I’ll see you frozen solid in Zandru’s coldest hell before that, you—” I cried out, and whipped out my dagger; I stood confronting him. There had been a time when I could probably have beaten him in swordplay; now, with one hand, and a head wound and a slash in my good arm, I didn’t think I had a chance. But I might, at least, force him to kill me cleanly first.

“No, wait, Lew,” said Callina quietly. “This is—Kadarin?” There was nothing in her voice but fastidious distaste, not a trace of fear. I saw a shadow of dismay on Kadarin’s face, but he was not human enough, now, to react to the words. He said, in a ghastly parody on his old, urbane manner, “Robert Raymon Kadarin, para servirti, vai domna.”

She raised the Sword of Aldones slightly in her hand.

“Come and take it—if you can,” she said, and held it out invitingly to him. I cried out, “Callina, no—” and even Thyra cried out something wordless, but Kadarin snarled, “Bluffing won’t help,” and lunged at her, wresting the sword from her hand—

Her hand exploded in blue fire, and Kadarin went reeling back, in the blue glow, the Sword of Aldones flared with brilliance, the brightness of copper filings in flame, and flared there, lying on the ground between us, while Kadarin, stunned and half senseless, slowly dragged himself to his feet, snarling a gutter obscenity of which I understood only its foulness.

Callina said quietly, “I cannot take it now that it has touched Sharra, either. Kathie—?”

Slowly, hesitating, her hand reluctant, she knelt and stretched out her hand; slowly, frightened, as if she feared that the same blue blaze of power would knock her senseless. But her hand closed over the hilt without incident. Perhaps, to her, it was only a sword. She drew a long breath.

Thyra cried out, “Let me—”

“No, wild-bird.” For an instant, I saw through the monstrous thing he had become, a hint of the man I had, once, loved as a sworn brother; the old tenderness as he drew Thyra back, holding her quiet. “You cannot touch it either—but neither can the Alton whelp, so it’s a draw. Let them go; there will be a time and place—” he glared out at me again, the moment of gentleness and humanity gone. “And nothing will protect you then; who has been touched by the flamehair, she will claim again for her own. And then the hells themselves will burn in Sharra’s flame…”

Gods above! Once this had been a man, and my friend! I could not even hate him now; he was not human enough for that.

He was Sharra, clothed in the body of a man who had once been human… and he willed it so, he had surrendered of his own will to the monstrous thing he had become! I could hardly see Thyra at his side, through the illusion of tossing flames which raged between us…

“No,” Thyra cried out, “not now! Not now!” and the flames receded. I could see her clearly now; there had never been any fire. She came toward me, hands outstretched; only a woman, small and frail with little bones like a bird’s. She was dressed like a man for riding, and her hair was the same rich copper as Marjorie’s, and her eyes, clear golden-amber like Marjorie’s, looked up to me in the old sweet half-mocking way; and I remembered that I had loved her, desired her…

She said, reaching out for a half-forgotten rapport between us, “What have you done with my daughter? Our daughter?”

Marja! For a moment it seemed I could feel the touch of sweet memory, Marjorie merging into Thyra in my arms, a living flame, the touch of the child-mind—

Thyra was in rapport and her face changed.

“You have her, then?”

I said quietly, “You did not want her, Thyra. It was a cruel trick played on a drugged man, and you deserve all the misery you have had from it…”

But for a moment I had forgotten to watch her, forgotten that she was nothing, now, but Kadarin’s pawn… and in that moment a stab of agony went through my shoulder and my heart felt the agony of death and I knew that Thyra’s dagger had wounded me…

I reeled back with the shock of it. Callina caught me in her arms; even through pain and sudden despair… this was the end, and Sharra still raged, I had died too quickly, I had died… I was startled at the strength with which she held me upright. Kadarin made a lunge forward, hauled Thyra bodily off me.

“No! That’s not the way—we still need him—ah, what have you done, Thyra—you’ve killed him—”

I felt myself fainting, darkness sinking down and covering my eyes, a horrid noise battering at my eardrums—was death like this, pain and noise and blinding light? No, it was a Terran helicopter, hovering, sinking, and loud shouts, and one voice suddenly coming clear.

“Robert Raymon Kadarin, I arrest you in the name of the Empire, on charges of… lady, drop that knife; this is a nerve-blaster and I can drop you in your tracks. You too—put that sword down.”

Through the wavering darkness before my eyes I made out the dark-uniformed forms of Spaceforce men. I should have known they would find Kadarin, one way or the other, and with Terran weapons prohibited here in the Domains. I could bring charges against them, I thought weakly, they have no right to be here. Not like this. Not with blasters outside the Trade City. I should arrest them instead of them arresting us.

Then I sank into a darkness that was like death indeed, and all I could feel was an immense regret for all I had left undone. Then even that was gone.

CHAPTER THREE

« ^ »

Dio watched the horses out of sight, and as they turned out of the Street of Coppersmiths, it seemed to Regis that the woman was weeping; but she shook her head, and one or two bright drops went flying. She looked at him, almost defiantly, and said, “Well, Lord Hastur?”

“I promised I would see you safely back to the Castle, Domna,” he said, offering his arm.

She laughed; it was like a rainbow coming out through the cloud. “I thank you, my lord. Not necessary. I’ve walked unguarded in worse places than this!”

“That’s right, you’ve been offworld,” Regis said, feeling again the old longing, the old envy; for all his suffering, Lew was freer than he was himself, with all the worlds of an interstellar Empire at his command. Oh, to go beyond the narrow skies of his own world, to see the stars…he knew now that he would never go. For better or for worse, his fate lay here, whatever it might be; an unwanted crown, the new laran which so weighed on him that he felt he would split asunder like a butterfly from its constricting cocoon. He was Hastur; the rest he should put aside, all his old dreams, like the brightly colored tops and balls of his childhood. He walked at Dio’s side, along the Street of Coppersmiths, turning at the corner to take the road to the Comyn Castle, and heard the whispers, saw the crowd draw before him in awe and astonishment.

“Comyn…”

“It’s the Lord Hastur himself… the prince…”

“No, for sure not, what would the likes o’ he be doing here on the street and unguarded…”

“It’s the Hastur prince, yes, I saw him on Festival Night…”

He could not walk down a fairly narrow and unimportant street without collecting a crowd. Lew, a marked man and disfigured, one hand sacrificed to the fires of Sharra, was still more free than himself… If any man stared at Lew it was only with pity or curiosity, not this entire trust, that sense that whatever might come to Darkover, the Hastur-kin would protect them and shield them.

Like my own laran, it is too much for me… too much for any mortal man less than a God!

He drew a fold of his cloak over the concealment of his red hair, all unshielded to the mental leakage of the crowd, wonder, astonishment, curiosity—I cannot dance with a woman or walk with one down the street but my name is linked to hers…

“I’m sorry, Dio,” he said, trying for lightness, “but I’m afraid they have you marked out for my Queen already; it is a pity that we must disappoint them. Now, I suppose, I will have to explain to my grandfather that I do not intend to marry you, either!”

She gave him a small wry smile. “I have no wish to be a Queen,” she said, “and I fear, even if you wished to marry me, Lord Danvan would be scandalized…”

I have cheapened myself with other men on Vainwal; and now I am sister to the traitor who has fled from Darkover into the Empire—

He said, gently, “I did not know Lerrys was gone. But I do not blame him for running away, Dio. I wish I could.” After a moment he added, “And if you are a traitor’s sister, that does not make you traitor; but the more credit to you that you have remained when others have fled.”

They were standing now before the gates of the Comyn Castle; he saw one of the Guardsmen stare at him, alone and unattended and with Lady Dio Ridenow, and although he was trying not to read the man’s mind, he could sense the man’s shock and amazement; Lord Regis, here and without even a bodyguard, and with a woman… and a secret pleasure at this morsel of gossip he could spread among his fellows. Well, everything Regis did created gossip, but he was heartily sick of it.

He crossed the courtyard, wanting to say a polite word or two to Dio and dismiss her. He had too many troubles to share them with any woman, even if there was a woman alive with whom he could share anything except a brief moment of passion or pleasure. And, abruptly, looking at Dio, he was torn by her despair.

“What is it, Dio?” he asked gently, and felt it flood through him.

He was so sure he was going to die! All he sees is his own death…I would have gone to death, even that, beside him, but he can only see Callina…

He was struck numb by the quality of her pain. No woman had ever loved him like that, none ever shown him that kind of loyalty and staunchness—

He has gone to die, to hurl himself against death in finding the weapon against Sharra—

Regis realized that he should have gone with Lew himself; or he should have taken his matrix, cleansed it as he had done to Rafe’s. What gave him this strange power, not over Sharra, but over the Form of Fire? Kadarin was somewhere, with the Sharra matrix, and Lew might fall into his hands—

He should have gone with Lew, or cleansed Lew’s matrix. Or at least demanded that Callina take him to Ashara, so that the ancient Keeper of the Comyn could explain this new and monstrous Hastur Gift. Lew at least is Tower-trained, he knows what strengths he has… and what weaknesses; he faces death with full knowledge, not blinded as I am by ignorance! What was the good of being Hastur, and Lord of Comyn, if he could not even know what this new laran might bring him?

Dio was trying to conceal her tears. Part of him wanted to reassure her, but he had no comfort for her and in any case Dio did not want facile lies; she was one of the sensitive Ridenow and she would see through them at once. He said quietly, “It may be that we are all going to die, Dio. But if I have a chance I would rather die to keep Sharra from destroying Darkover—Terran and Comyn alike. And so would Lew, I think; and he has the right to choose his own death… and to make amends…”

“I suppose so.” Beneath the understanding, she turned to him, no longer trying to conceal her tears, and somehow he realized that this was a kind of acceptance. “It’s strange; I have seen so much of his—his weakness, his gentler side, I forget how strong he is. He would never run away to the Terrans because he was afraid; not even if they burned off his other hand first…”

“No,” said Regis, suddenly feeling closer to her than to his own sister, “he wouldn’t.”

“You wouldn’t either, would you?” she asked, smiling at him through the tears in her eyes.

He is Hastur…and he will stand by Comyn… and then, even in Dio, the curious and inevitable question: I wonder why he has never married? Surely he could have any woman he wanted… surely it is not true that he is, like Lerrys, like Dyan, only a lover of men, he has had women, he has nedestrochildren—

And then, Regis felt it, a return of her own despair and pain, our son, Lew’s and mine, that frightful thing, and I rebuffed him…it was only because I was so sick and weak, I did not hate him or blame him, and then Lerrys took me away, before I could tell him… Merciful Avarra, he has suffered so much, and I hurt him again, all that horror, when I had promised that he would never have to hide himself from me…

… and he will die still thinking I had rebuffed him because of that horror—

And suddenly Regis found himself envying Lew.

How he has been loved! I have never known what it was to love a woman like that or to be loved… and I shall die never knowing if I am capable of that kind of love…

Oh, yes, there had been women. He was capable of sudden flaring passion, of taking them with pleasure, given and received; but once the flare of mutual lust had burned out, sometimes even before the woman knew herself pregnant with his child, he had been all too aware of what it was they felt for him; pleasure at his physical beauty, pride that they had attracted the attention of a Hastur, greed for the status and privilege that would be theirs if they bore a Hastur child. Any one of the five or six would gladly have married him for that status; but he had never felt for any of them anything more than that brief flaring of passion and lust; the vague distaste and even revulsion, knowing that their feeling for him was based on greed or pride.

But never this kind of disinterested love… will I die without ever knowing if I am capable of attracting that kind of love from a woman? No one has ever loved me thus unselfishly but Danilo, and that is different, the love of comrades, a shared companionship… and even that, all men seem to despise… a thing to be put aside with boyhood…is there no more than this? Why can Lew attract this kind of love, and not I?

But with what was hanging over them, there was no time for this either. He turned to speak some word of recollection to Dio, when suddenly a shriek of wild terror surged through their minds, a wordless cry of despair and fright and utter panic, pain and fear. A child, a child is crying in terror… Regis was not sure whether it was his thought or Dio’s, but all at once he knew what child it was who shrieked out in such agonized fright, and he pushed Dio before him and ran, ran like a possessed thing toward the Alton apartments.

Marja! But who would so terrify a child?

The great double doors to the Alton suite were standing ajar, swinging on one hinge. Old Andres was lying in a pool of his own blood, half over the threshold where he had been struck down.

He guarded her with his life, as he had sworn… Regis felt dismay; he too had been befriended and fathered by the old coridom. Then he realized that Andres was still moving feebly, though he was long past speech. He knelt, tears swelling up in his own eyes for the faithful old man, and Andres, with his last strength, whispered, “Dom Regis… lad…”

Regis knew that Andres did not see him; the dying eyes were already glazed, past sight. He saw only the boy of ten, Kennard’s fosterling, Lew’s sworn friend. And with his last strength Andres formed a picture in Regis’s mind…

Then it was gone and there was nothing living in the room except himself. Regis stood up, stricken with pain. “Beltran! But how, in all of Zandru’s hells, did he manage to come here, when I left him safely imprisoned…”

He did not even need to ask. He had left Beltran with Lord Dyan; and Dyan had agreed with Beltran that Sharra was the ultimate weapon against the Terrans… Lew was beyond their reach. But there remained an Alton child…

There remained an Alton child; and one Gifted, even at five years old, with the laran of her house… and of her chieri blood. Regis felt sick; would anything human stoop to use a small child in Sharra? He had had reason to know that Dyan could be cruel, could be unscrupulous, but this?

He realized that all through this, he had been hearing somewhere in his mind, ringing louder and wilder, the terrified shrieks of the child, the sudden flame and terror of the Form of Fire… and then it was gone, so suddenly that for a moment Regis was shocked, feeling that Marja must suddenly have died of terror, or been struck silent by a blow of terrifying cruelty…

What madness was this? Around him was the silence of death in the Alton rooms, the horrified gasps of Dio who stood on the threshold, but somewhere he was hearing a voice he knew, or was it a telepathic touch rather than a voice?

Fool, this is nothing for a girl-child! I have the strength and I am not squeamish…I am not one of your Tower-trained eunuchs, let me take that place rather than one you can never trust. . and then almost laughter, silent laughter in mockery. No, she’s not dead, she is beyond your reach, that is all…pick on someone your own size, Beltran!

“Lord of Light!” Regis gasped in shock, knowing what had happened. Dyan had chosen Sharra, despite every warning, he had walked of his own free will into that horror which had cost Lew his hand and his sanity, which even now overpowered Regis with dread and terror…

Does this mean Lew is free? No, never, never, he is still bound to Sharra…

“Lord Hastur! Lord Regis—” a gasping servant, come in search of him, stopped in shock, staring at the dead body of the old coridom on the floor. “Good Gods, sir, what’s happened?”

Regis said, clutching at calm and ordinary things, “This man died defending his master’s—his foster-son’s property and his child. He should have a funeral fit for a hero. Find someone who can see to it, can you?” He rose slowly, staring at the dead man and at the servants clustering in the doorway of the Alton suite. Then he saw the man who had come to look for him.

“Sir, the Lord Hastur—your grandsire, sir—he has ordered—” again the man, confused, shifted ground, “he has asked if you will come and attend on him…”

Regis sighed. He had been expecting that; what conflicting demands was his grandfather to make on him now? He saw Dio and knew she could not bear to be left out of what was happening now. Well, she had a right to know.

“Come along,” he said, “Lew and I were bredin, once, and you have a claim on me, too.”

He found his grandfather in the small presence-chamber of the Hastur apartments; Danvan Hastur said, “Aldones be thanked, I have found you! The Terran Legate has sent a message to you personally, Regis; something about a Captain Scott and permission to authorize Terran weapons—” he looked at his grandson, and tried to speak with the old authority, but only managed a shocking parody of his old strength. “I don’t know how you came to put yourself in a position where Terrans could bid you come and go, but I suppose you’ll have to deal with it—”

He is old. I am the real power of Hastur now and we both know it; though he will never say so, Regis thought, and spoke to the unspoken part of his grandfather’s words, whatever the actual words had been.

“Don’t trouble yourself, sir; I’ll go and deal with it.” He suddenly felt deep compassion for the old man, who had spent so many years holding the power of the Comyn, without even laran to sustain him.

He has had all the troubles of a Hastur and none of the rewards, he thought, and then was startled and shocked at himself. Rewards? This monstrous laran which threatened, unwanted, to split him asunder, so that he walked with the terrible knowledge of a power whose forces he could not even imagine?

Gift? The Hastur curse, rather! He felt as if his very arms and legs were too big for him, as if he walked halfway between earth and sky, his feet hardly touching the ground, and all without knowing why. Desperately, he wanted Danilo at his side. But there was not even time to send a message to his paxman, and in any case, if Dyan had flung himself recklessly into the danger and terror of Sharra, Danilo was Lord Ardais, for Dyan was as good as dead, and so were they all; let Danilo stay free of this if he could. He said brusquely to the Spaceforce man who had brought the message, “I’ll come at once.” Dio turned to follow him and he said, “No. Stay here.” He could not encumber himself with any woman now, certainly not when Danilo had been denied the privilege of attending him.

“I will go,” she said wildly, “I am a Terran citizen; you cannot prevent me!”

It wasn’t worth arguing. He signaled to the Spaceforce man to let her come, and together they clambered into the surface car. Regis had never ridden in a Terran vehicle before; he hung on breathless, as it tore through the streets, men and women and horses scattering as it roared and jolted over the cobbles; he thought irrelevantly, we must forbid this, it is too dangerous on such old and crowded streets. Once through the gates into the Trade City the streets were a little smoother and he hung on desperately, not wanting to show his fright before Dio who was apparently accustomed to this kind of breath-taking transport.

Through the HQ gates, the Spaceforce driver barely stopping to flash a pass of some sort at the guard, then tearing across the abnormally smooth terrain to the very gates of the skyscraper; and up in the lift, Dio doggedly keeping at his heels all the way, then into Lawton’s office.

Rafe Scott, white as death, was there, and Lawton didn’t waste words. He gestured, and Rafe poured it out.

“Kadarin has gone to Hali! I suddenly discovered that I was reading Thyra—I don’t know why—”

Regis did. He could feel Sharra, through and around Rafe, a monstrous and obscene flame, unbodied, inchoate… and Rafe was part of that ancient bonding.

Kadarin, bearing the Sword. Thyra. Beltran—

Dyan, who had recklessly flung himself into the volcano.

And Lew, somewhere, somewhere…bound, sealed, doomed…

“Well?” Lawton said crisply, “Will you authorize me to send a helicopter, and men properly armed with blasters, to arrest Kadarin out there? Or are you going to stick to the letter of your Compact, while they work with something which is farther outside of your Compact than a super-planetbusting bomb, let alone a blaster or two?”

Am I going to authorize… who does he think I am? Then, in the sudden humility of power recognized and feared, Regis knew that he could no longer avoid the responsibility. He said, “Yes. I’ll authorize it.” He managed to write his name, though his hand shook, on the form Lawton held out to him. Lawton spoke into some kind of communicator.

“All right; Hastur authorized it. Let the copter go.”

“I want to—” I should go with the copter. Maybe I can still do something for Lew…or his matrix if it’s sealed to Sharra…

Lawton shook his head. “Too late. They’ve taken off. All you can do now is wait.”

They waited, while the sun sank slowly behind the mountain pass. Waited, while time wore away and dragged, and finally Regis saw the helicopter, a tiny black speck hovering over the mountain pass, coming nearer, nearer.

Dio rose and cried out, “He’s hurt! I—I have to go to him—” and dashed for the lift. Lawton simultaneously answered some kind of blinking light, listened, and his face changed.

“Well,” he said grimly to Regis, “I waited too long, or you did, or somebody. They’ve got Kadarin, yes, but it looks as if he’s managed to commit another murder while everybody stood by and watched. They’re going to take him down to Medic. You’d better come along.”

Regis followed, through the sterile white walls of the Medical division. An elevator whined softly to a stop and Spaceforce men hauled out prisoners. Dio had eyes only for Lew, carried between two of the uniformed men. Regis could not tell whether he was alive or dead; his face was ghastly, his head lolled lifeless, and the whole front of his shirt was covered in blood.

Bredu! Regis felt shock and grief surging over him. Dio was clinging to Lew’s lax hand, crying now without trying to hide it. Behind, Kadarin moved manacled between two guards. Regis barely recognized him, he was so much older, so much more haggard, as if something were consuming him from within. Thyra, too, was handcuffed. Kathie looked pale and frightened, and one of the guards was carrying Callina, who appeared to have fainted; they set her in a chair and gestured to someone to bring smelling-salts, and after a minute Callina opened her eyes; but she swayed, holding to the chair. Kathie went swiftly to her and held her up. One of the Medic personnel said something and she frowned and said, “I’m a nurse; I’ll look after her. You’d better look after Mr. Montray-Alton; the woman stabbed him, and it looks as if it may have finished him—he was still alive when the helicopter landed, but that’s not saying much.”

But Regis looked at the long sword Kathie had let slide to the floor; and something inside him, something in his blood, suddenly awoke and shouted inside his veins.

THIS IS MINE!

He went and picked it up; it felt warm and right in his hands. Callina opened her eyes, staring, a strange, cold, blue gaze.

The moment Regis had the sword in his hands, looking at the curling letters written on the scabbard, all at once he seemed to be everywhere, not just where his body was, but as if the edges of his body had spread out to encompass everything in the room. He touched Callina and saw her with a strange double sight, the woman he knew, the plain quiet Keeper, still and prim and gentle, and at the same time she was overlaid with something else, cold and blue and watchful, like ice, strange and cold as stone. He touched Dio and felt the flood of her love and concern and dread; he touched Kadarin and drew back, THIS IS THE ENEMY, THIS IS THE BATTLE… NOT YET, NOT YET! He touched Lew.

Pain. Cold. Silence. Fear and the consuming flame…

Pain. Pain at the heart, stabbing pain… Regis spread out into the pain, that was the only way to explain it, felt the broken torn cells, the bleeding out of the life— NO! I WILL NOT HAVE IT SO! The trickling silence that was Lew was suddenly flooded with terrible pain, and then with heat and life and then Lew opened his eyes, and sat up, staring at Regis. His lips barely moved and he whispered, “What—what are you?”

And Regis heard himself say, from a great distance, “Hastur.”

And the word meant nothing to him. But the gaping wound had closed, and all around him the Terran medics were standing and staring; and in his hand was this sword which seemed, now, to be more than half of himself.

And suddenly Regis was terrified and he slid the sword back into its sheath, and suddenly the world was all in one piece again and he was back in his body. He was shaking so hard that he could hardly stand.

“Lew! Bredu—you’re alive!”

CHAPTER FOUR

« ^ »

Lew Alton’s narrative, concluded

I have never remembered anything about that helicopter ride to the Terran HQ, or how I got to the Legate’s office; the first awareness was of hellish pain and its sudden cessation.

“Lew! Lew, can you hear me?”

How could I help it? She was shouting right in my ear! I opened my eyes and saw Dio, her face wet with tears.

“Don’t cry, love,” I said, “I’m all right. That hell-cat Thyra must have stabbed me, but she seems not to have hurt me much.”

But Kathie motioned Dio back when she would have bent to me, saying with professional crispness, “Just a moment; his pulse was nearly gone.” She took some kind of instrument and cut away my shirt; then I heard her gasp.

Where Thyra’s knife had gone in—perilously near the heart—was only a small, long-healed scar, paler and more perfectly cicatrized than the discolored scars on my face.

“I don’t believe this,” she protested. “I saw it, and still I don’t believe it.” She took something cold and wet and washed off the still-sticky smears of half-dried blood which still clung to the skin. I looked ruefully at the ruined shirt.

“Get him a uniform shirt, or something,” said Lawton, and they brought me one, made out of paper or some similar unwoven fiber. It had a cold and rather slippery texture which I found unpleasant, but I wasn’t in a position to be picky; besides, the medical smells were driving me out of my mind. I said, “Do we have to stay down here? I’m not hurt—” and only then did I see Regis, the Sword of Aldones belted around his waist, an unbelieving look of awe on his face. Later I learned what he had done; but at the moment—everything was so mad already—I simply took it for granted and was grateful that the Sword had come to the hands of the one person on this world who could handle it. I think, originally, I had supposed that Callina, or perhaps Ashara, would have to take it, as Keeper. Now I saw it in Regis’s custody, and all I could think was, oh, yes, of course, he is Hastur.

“Where is Thyra? Did she get away?”

“Not likely,” said Lawton, grimly, “She’s in a cell downstairs, and there she’ll stay.”

“Why?” Kadarin asked. His voice was calm, and I stared, unable to believe my eyes; on the shores of Hali he had appeared to me as something very far from human; now, curiously, he looked like the man I had first known, civilized and urbane, even likable. “On what charges?”

“Attempted murder of Lew Alton here!”

“It would be hard to make a charge like that stick,” Kadarin said. “Where is the alleged wound?”

Lawton stared irritably at the blood-soaked shirt which had been cut from me. He said, “We’ve got eyewitnesses to the attempt. Meanwhile we’ll hold her for—oh, hell!—breaking and entering, trespass, carrying concealed weapons, indecent language in a public place—indecent exposure if we have to! The main thing is that we’re holding her, and you too; we need to ask you some questions about a certain murder and the burning of a townhouse in Thendara…”

Kadarin looked directly at me. He said, “Believe what you like, Lew; I did not murder your brother. I did not know your brother by sight; I did not know who he was until afterward, when I heard in the street who it was that had been killed. To me he was simply a young Terran I did not know; and for what it is worth, it was not I who killed him but one of my men. And I am sorry; I gave no orders that anyone should be killed. You know what it was that I came for, and why I had to come.”

I looked at this man and knew that I could not hate him. I too had been compelled to do things I would never have dreamed of doing, not in my right mind; and I knew what had compelled him. It was belted, now, around his waist; but through that I could see the man who had been my friend. I turned my face away. There was too much between us. I had no right to condemn him, not now, not when through my own matrix I could feel the pull, irresistible, of that unholy thing.

Return to me and live forever in undying reviving fire… and behind my eyelids the Form of Fire, between me and what I could see with my physical eyes. Sharra, and I was still a part of it, still damned. I took one step toward him; I do not know even now whether I meant to strike him or to join hands with him on the hilt of the Sharra matrix concealed in its sword.