The Heritage Of Hastur

"Come along with us, brother. You should see more of the city than you can from the barracks window!"

Thus urged, Regis went with the older men. The tavern was small and smoky, filled with off‑duty Guardsmen. Regis sat next to Gabriel, who took the trouble to teach him the card game they were playing. It was the first time he had

been in the company of older officers. Most of the time he was quiet, listening much more than he talked, but it was good to be one of the company and accepted.

It reminded him, just a little, of the summers he'd spent at Armida. It would never have occurred to Kennard or Lew or old Andres to treat the solemn and precocious boy as a child. That early acceptance among men had put him out of step, probably forever, he realized with a remote sadness, with lads his own age. Now though, and the knowledge felt as if a weight had fallen from him, he knew that he did feel at home among men. He felt as if he was drawing the first really free breaths he had drawn since his grandfather pushed him, with only a few minutes to prepare for it, into the cadets.

"You're quiet, kinsman," Gabriel said as they walked back together. "Have you had too much to drink? You'd better go and get some sleep. You'll be all right tomorrow." He said a good‑natured good night and went off to his own quarters.

The night officer patrolling the court said, "You're a few minutes late, cadet. It's your first offense, so I won't put you on report this time. Just don't do it again. Lights are out in the first‑year barracks; you'll have to undress in the dark."

Regis made his way, a little unsteadily, into the barracks. Gabriel was right, he thought, surprised and not altogether displeased, he had had too much to drink. He was not used to drinking at all, and tonight he had drunk several cups of wine. He realized, as he hauled off his clothes by the moonlight, that he felt confused and unfocused. It had, he thought with a strange fuzziness, been a meaningful day, but he didn't know yet what it all meant. The Council. The somehow shocking realization that he had reached his grandfather's mind, recognized Lew by touch without seeing or hearing him. The odd half‑quarrel with Danilo. It added to the confusion he felt, which was more than just drunkenness. He wondered if they had put kirian in his wine, heard himself giggle aloud at the thought, then fell rapidly into an edgy, nightmare‑ridden half‑sleep.

... He was back in Nevarsin, in the cold student dormitory where, in winter, snow drifted through the wooden shutters and lay in heaps on the novices* beds. In his dream, as had actually happened once or twice, two or three of the students had climbed into bed together, sharing blankets and

body warmth against the bitter cold, to be discovered in the morning and severely scolded for breaking this inflexible rule. This dream kept recurring; each time, he would discover some strange naked body in his arms and, deeply disturbed, he would wake up with an admixture of fear and guilt. Each time he woke from this repeated dream he was more deeply upset and troubled by it, until he finally escaped into a deeper, darker realm of sleep. Now it seemed that he was his own father, crouched on a bare hillside in darkness, with strange fires exploding around him. He was shuddering with fright as men dropped dead around him, closer and closer, knowing that within moments he too would be blasted into fragments by one of the erupting fires. Then he felt someone close to him in the dark, holding him, sheltering his body with Ms own. Regis started awake again, shaking. He rubbed his eyes and looked around him at the quiet barracks room, dimly lit with moonlight, seeing the dim forms of the other cadets, snoring or muttering in their sleep. None of it was real, he thought, and slid down again on his hard mattress.

After a while he began to dream again. This time he was wandering in a featureless gray landscape in which there was nothing to see. Someone was crying somewhere in the gray spaces, crying miserably, in long painful sobs. Regis kept turning in another direction, not at first sure whether he was looking for the source of the weeping or trying to get away from the wretched sound. Small shuddering words came through the sobs, / won't, I don't want to, I can't. Every time the crying lessened for a moment there was a cruel voice, an almost familiar voice, saying, Oh, yes you will, you know you cannot fight me, and at other times, Hate me as much as you will, I like it better that way. Regis squirmed with fear. Then he was alone with the weeping, the inarticulate little sobs of protest and pleading. He went on searching in the lonely grayness until a hand touched him in the dark, a rude indecent searching, half painful and half exciting. He cried out "No!" and fled again into deeper sleep.

This time he dreamed he was in the student's court at Nevarsin, practicing with the wooden foils. Regis could hear the sound of his own panting breaths, doubled and multiplied in the great echoing room as a faceless opponent moved before him and kept quickening his movements insistently. Suddenly Regis realized they were both naked, that the blows struck were landing on his bare body. As his faceless op‑

ponent moved faster and faster Regis himself grew almost paralyzed, sluggishly unable to lift his sword. And then a great ringing voice forbade them to continue, and Regis dropped his sword and looked up at the dark cowl of the forbidding monk. But it was not the novice‑master at Nevarsin monastery, but Dyan Ardais. While Regis stood, frozen with dread, Dyan picked up the dropped sword, no longer a wooden practice sword, but a cruelly sharpened rapier. Dyan, holding it out straight ahead while Regis looked on in dread and horror, plunged it right into Regis' breast. Curiously, it went hi without the slightest pain, and Regis looked down in shaking dread at the sight of the sword passing through his entire body. "That's because it didn't touch the heart," Dyan said, and Regis woke with a gasping cry, pulling himself upright in bed. "Zandru," he whispered, wiping sweat from his forehead, "what a nightmare!" He realized that his heart was still pounding, and then that his thighs and his sheets were damp with a clammy stJckiness. Now that he was wide awake and knew what had happened, he could almost laugh at the absurdity of the dream, but it still gripped him so that he could not lie down and go to sleep again.

It was quiet in the barrack room, with more than an hour to go before daybreak. He was no longer drunk or fuzzy‑headed, but there was a pounding pain behind his eyes.

Slowly he became aware that Danilo was crying in the next bed, crying helplessly, desperately, with a kind of hopeless pain. He remembered the crying in his dream. Had he heard the sound, woven it into nightmare?

Then, in a sort of slow amazement and wonder, he realized that Danilo was not crying.

He could see, by the dimmed moonlight, that Danilo was in fact motionless and deeply asleep. He could hear his breath coming softly, evenly, see his turned‑away shoulder moving gently with his breathing. The weeping was not a sound at all, but a sort of intangible pattern of vibrating misery and despair, like the lost little crying in his dream, but soundless.

Regis put his hands over his eyes in the darkness and thought, with rising wonder, that he hadn't heard the crying, but knew it just the same.

It was true, then. Laran. Not randomly picked up from another telepath, but his.

The shock of that thought drove everything else from bis

mind. How did it happen? When? And formulating the question brought its own answer: that first day in barracks, when Dani had touched him. He had dreamed about that conversation tonight, dreaming he was his father for a moment Again he felt that surge of closeness, of emotion so intense that there was a lump in his throat. Danilo slept quietly now, even the telepathic impression of noiseless weeping having died away. Regis worried, troubled and torn with even the backwash of his friend's grief, wondering what was wrong.

Quickly he shut off the curiosity. Lew had said that you learned to keep your distance, in order to survive. It was a strange, sad thought. He could not spy on his friend's privacy, yet he was still near to tears at the awareness of Dani's misery. He had sensed it, earlier that day, when Lew talked to them. Had someone hurt him, ill‑treated him?

Or was it simply that Danilo was lonely, homesick, wanting his family? Regis knew so little about him.

He recalled his own early days at Nevarsin. Cold and lonely, heartsick, friendless, hating his family for sending him here, only a fierce remnant of Hastur pride had kept him from crying himself to sleep every night for a long time.

For some reason that thought filled him again with an almost unendurable sense of anxiety, fear, restlessness. He looked across at Danilo and wished he could talk to him about this. Dani had been through it; he would know. Regis knew he would have to tell someone soon. But who should he tell? His grandfather? The sudden realization of his own laran had left Regis strangely vulnerable, shaken again and again by waves of emotion; again he was at the edge of tears, this time for his grandfather, reliving that fierce, searing moment of anguish of his only son's terrible death.

And, still vulnerable, he swung from grief to rebellion. He was sure his grandfather would force him to walk the path ready‑made for a Hastur heir with laran. He would never be free! Again he saw the great ship taking off for the stars, and his whole heart, his body, his mind, strained to follow it outward into the unknown. If he cherished that dream, he could never tell his grandfather at all.

But he could share it with Dani. He literally ached to step across the brief space between their beds, slip into bed beside him, share with him this incredible dual experience of grief and tremendous joy. But he held himself back, recalling with an imperative strange sharpness what Lew had said; it was

like living with your skin off. How could he impose this burden of his own emotions on Dani, who was himself so burdened with unknown sorrow, so troubled and nightmare‑driven that his unshed tears penetrated even into Regis' dreams as a sound of weeping? If he was to have the telepathic gift, Regis thought sadly, he had to learn to live by the rules of the telepath. He realized that he was cold and cramped, and crawled under his blankets again. He huddled them around him, feeling lonely and sad. He felt curiously unfocused again, drifting in anxious search, but hi answer to his questioning mind he saw only flimsy pictures in imagination, men and strange nonhumans fighting along a narrow rock‑ledge; the faces of two little children fair and delicate and baby‑blurred in sleep, then cold in death with a grief almost too terrible to be borne; dancing figures whirling, whirling like wind‑blown leaves in a mad ecstasy; a great towering form, blazing with fire ...

Exhausted with emotion, he slept again.

Chapter EIGHT

(Lew Alton's narrative)

There are two theories about Festival Night, the great midsummer holiday in the Domains. Some say that it is the birthday of the Blessed Cassilda, foremother of the Comyn. Others say that it commemorates the time of year when she found Hastur, Son of Aldones, Lord of Light, sleeping on the shores of Hali after his journey from the realms of Light Since I don't believe that either of them ever existed, I have no emotional preference about either theory.

My father, who hi his youth traveled widely in the Empire, told me once that every planet he has ever visited, and most of those he hasn't, have both a midsummer and midwinter holiday. We're no exception. In the Domains there are two traditional celebrations for summer Festival; one is a private family celebration in which the women are given gifts, usually fruit or flowers, in the name of Cassilda.

Early this morning I had taken my foster‑sister Linnell Ail‑lard some flowers, in honor of the day, and she had reminded me of the other celebration, the great Festival ball, held every year in the Comyn Castle.

I've never liked these enormous affairs, even when I was too young for the ball and taken to the children's party in the afternoon; I've disliked them ever since my first one, at the age of seven, when Lerrys Ridenow hit me over the head with a wooden horse.

It would be unthinkable to absent myself, however. My father had made it clear that attending was just one of the unavoidable duties of an heir to Comyn. When I told Linnell that I was thinking of developing some illness just severe enough to keep me away, or changing duty with one of the

Guard officers, she pouted. "If you're not there, who'll dance with me?" Linnell is too young to dance at these affairs except with kinsmen so, ever since she's been allowed to attend at all, I've been reminded that unless I'm there to dance with her she will find herself watching from the balcony. My father, of course, has the excellent excuse of his lameness.

I resolved to put in an appearance, dance a few dances with Linnetl, be polite to a few old ladies and make an unobtrusive exit as early as politeness allowed.

I came late, having been on duty in the Guard hall where I'd heard the cadets gossiping about the affair. I didn't blame them. All Guardsmen, whatever their rank, and all cadets not actually on duty, have the privilege of attending. To youngsters brought up in the outlands, I suppose it's an exciting spectacle. I was more disinclined to go than ever because Marius had come in while I was dressing. He'd been taken to the children's party, had made himself sick with sweets and had skinned knuckles and a black eye from a fight with some supercilious little boy, distantly kin to the Elhalyns, who had called him a Terran bastard. Well, I'd been called worse in my day and told him so, but I really had no comfort for him. I was ready to kick them all in the shins by the time I went down. It was, I reflected, a hell of a good start to the evening.

As was customary, the beginning dances were exhibitions by professionals or gifted amateurs. A troupe of dancers in the costume of the far mountains was dcfing a traditional dance, with a good deal of skirt‑swirling and boot‑stamping. I'd seen it danced better, a while since, on my trip into the foothills. Perhaps no professionals can ever give the mountain dances the true gaiety and excitement of the people who dance them for pure pleasure.

I moved slowly around the edges of the room. My father was being polite to elderly dowagers on the sidelines. Old Hastur was doing the same thing with a group of Terrans who had probably been invited for political or ceremonial reasons. The Guardsmen, especially the young cadets, had already discovered the elegant buffet spread out along one wall and kept replenished by a whole troop of servants. So early in the evening, they were almost the only ones there. I grinned reminiscently. I am no longer required to share the men's mess, but I remembered my cadet years vividly enough to

know how good the plentiful delicacies would look after what passes for supper in the barracks.

Danilo was there, in dress uniform. A little self‑consciously, he wished me a joyous Festival. I returned the greeting. "Where is Regis? I don't see him anywhere."

"He was on duty tonight, sir. 1 offered to change with him‑all his kinsmen are here‑but he said he would have years of it, and I should go and enjoy myself."

I wondered which officer, in malice or by way of emphasizing that a Hastur could expect no favors in the cadets, had made certain that Regis Hastur would draw a tour of duty on Festival Night. I only wished I had so good an excuse.

"Well, enjoy yourself by all means, Dani," I told him.

The hidden musicians had struck up a sword dance and Danilo turned eagerly to watch as two Guardsmen came with torches to place the swords. The hall lights were lowered to emphasize the ancient and barbaric quality of this oldest of traditional mountain dances. It is usually danced by one of the greatest dancers in Thendara; to my surprise, it was Dyan Ardais who strode forward, wearing the brilliantly barbaric costume whose history was lost before the Ages of Chaos.

There are not many amateurs, even in the Hellers, who still know all the traditional steps and patterns. I'd seen Dyan dance it when I was a child at Armida, in my father's hall. I thought that it went better there, to the music of a single drone‑pipe, by the glare of firelight and a torch or two, than here in the elaborate ballroom, surrounded by ladies in fancy party costumes and bored noblemen and city folk.

Yet even the elaborately garbed ladies and noblemen fell silent, impressed by the strange solemnity of the old dance. And yes‑I give him his due‑by Dyan's performance. For once he looked grave, stern, free of the flippant cynicism I detested so, wholly caught up in the tense, treading‑on‑eggs quality of the weaving steps. The dance displays a fierce, almost tigerish masculinity, and Dyan brought a sort of leashed violence to it. As he snatched up the swords in the final figure and held them poised over his head, there was not a sound anywhere hi the ballroom. Because I had been impressed against my will, I tried deliberately to break the spell.

I said aloud to Danilo, **I wonder who he's showing off to this time? It's a pity Dyan's indifferent to women; after this he'd have to beat them off with a pitchfork!"

I found myself pitying any woman‑or any man, for that matter‑who allowed himself to be charmed by Dyan. I hoped for his own sake that Danilo was not one of them. It's natural enough for boys that age to be strongly attracted to any strong character, and a cadet‑master is a natural object for such romantic identification. If the older man is an honorable and kindly one, it does no harm and wears off in a short time. I long since grew out of any such childish attachments and, although I've been on the receiving end a time or two, I made sure it went no further than a few exchanged smiles.

Well, I wasn't Dani's guardian, and it had been made clear that Dyan was beyond my reach. Besides, I had enough worries of my own.

Dyan was moving toward the buffet; I saw him stop for a glass of wine, speaking to the Guardsmen there with a show of affability. We came briefly face to face. Resolving that if there was any discourtesy among Comyn I would not be the one to show it, I made some brief polite comment on the dance. He replied with equally meaningless courtesy, his eyes straying past me. I wondered who he was looking for and received in return‑my barriers must have been lowered for a moment‑a surge of violent anger. Perhaps after tonight this meddlesome bastard will be busy with his own affairs and have less time for interfering in mine!

I made the briefest possible polite bow and moved away for my promised dance with Linnell. The floor was filling quickly with dancers; I took Linnell's fingertips and led her to the floor.

Linnell is a pretty child, with soft bronze‑brown hair and blue eyes framed in lashes so long and dark they looked unreal. She was, I thought, considerably prettier than her kinswoman Callina, who had looked so severe and stern at Council yesterday.

The Aillard Domain is the only one in which laran and Council‑right pass not in the male line, but in the female; males are not allowed to hold full Domain rights in Council. The last comynara in the direct line had been Cleindori, the last of the Keepers trained completely in the old, cloistered virginal tradition. While still quite young, she had left the tower, rebelled against the old superstitions surrounding the matrix circles and especially the Keepers and had, in defiance of tradition and belief, taken a consort and borne him a child

while continuing to use the powers she had been taught. She had been horribly murdered by fanatics who thought a Keeper's virginity was more important than her competence or her powers. But she had broken the ancient mold, defied the superstitions and created a new scientific approach to what is now called matrix mechanics. For years her very name had been abhorred as a renegade. Now her memory was revered by every psi technician on Darkover.

But she had left no daughters. The old Aillard line had finally died out and Callina Lindir‑Aillard, a distant kinswoman of my father's and of the male bead of the Aillard Domain, had been chosen comynara, as nearest female successor. Linnell had come to Armida for my father to foster and had been brought up as my sister.

Linnell was an expert dancer, and I enjoyed dancing with her. I have little interest in feminine fripperies, but Linnell had taught me the courtesies of such things, so I took polite notice of her gown and ornaments. When the dance came to an end, I led Linnell to the sidelines and asked her if she thought I should ask Callina to dance; Callina, too, by Comyn custom for unwed women, was restricted to dancing with kinsmen except at masked balls.

"I don't know if Callina cares to dance," Linnell said, "she's very shy. But you should ask her. I'm sure she'll tell you if she'd rather not. Oh, there is Javanne Hastur! Every time I've seen her in the last nine years, it seems, she's been pregnant. But she's actually pretty, isn't she?"

Javanne was dancing with Gabriel. She had a high color in her cheeks and looked as if she were enjoying herself. I suppose that any young matron would be happy, after four closely spaced pregnancies, to be in society again. Javanne was very tall and excessively thin, a dark girl in an elaborate green‑and‑golden gown. I did not think her pretty, but she was undeniably handsome.

I conducted Linnell to Callina, but before I could speak to her, my father approached me.

"Come along, Lew," he said, in a tone I had learned to regard, however politely phrased, as a command. "You should pay your respects to Javanne."

I stared. Javanne? She had never liked me, even when we were going to children's parties. Once we had both been whipped impartially for getting into a kicking‑and‑scratching fight, at seven or so, and later‑, when we were about eleven,

she rudely refused to dance with me, saying I stepped on her feet. I probably did, but I had already been telepath enough to know that was not her reason. "Father," I said patiently, "I'm quite sure Lady Javanne can dispense with any compliments from me." Had he quite lost his wits?

"And Lew promised to dance with me again,** Linnell said sulkily. Father patted her cheek and assured her there would be time enough for that, with a look at me which admitted no further delay unless I wanted to defy him openly and make a scene.

Javanne was standing in a little cluster of younger women, sipping a glass of wine. My father's voice seemed more deliberate than usual, as he presented me.

"I wish you a joyous Festival, kinsman," she said with a courteous bow. Kinsman! Well, Gabriel and I were friendly enough; perhaps she had learned, from husband and brother, that I was not such a scandal after all. At least for once she seemed to speak to me as if I were a human being. She beckoned to one of the young girls in the crowd surrounding her. "I wish to present to you a young kinswoman of your own, Lew, Linnea Storn‑Lanart."

Linnea Storn‑Lanart was very young, certainly no older than Linnell, with russet hair falling in soft curls around a heart‑shaped face. The Storns were old mountain nobility from the region near Aldaran who had intermarried years ago with Lanarts and Leyniers. What was a maiden so young doing alone in Thendara?

Linnea, aJthough she seemed modest enough, raised her eyes with frank curiosity to my face. Mountain girls‑I had heard this from my father‑did not follow the exaggerated custom of the lowlands, where a direct glance at a strange man is immodest; hence mountain girls are often considered, here in the Domains, to be over‑bold. She looked straight at me for a moment, smiling, then caught Javanne's eyes, flushed crimson and looked quickly at the toes of her slippers. I supposed Javanne had given her a lesson in proper manners for the Domains, and she did not wish to be thought countrified.

I was at a loss what to say to her. She was my kinswoman, or had been so presented to me, although the relationship could not be very close. Perhaps that was it‑Javanne wished to spend her time dancing, not looking after a kinswoman

too young to dance with strangers. I said, "Will you honor me with a dance, damiselaT'

She glanced quickly at Javanne for permission, then nodded. I led her to the floor. She was a good dancer and seemed to enjoy it, but I kept wondering why my father should go out of his way to make life easy for Javanne. And why had he looked at me so meaningfully as we moved on to the dance floor? And why had he introduced her as a kinswoman, when the relationship must surely be far too distant to notice officially? When the music ended, it was still perplexing me.

I bluntly said. "What is this all about?"

Forgetting her careful briefing in manners, she blurted out, "Didn't they tell you? They told me!" Then her sudden blush flooded her face again. It made her look very pretty, but I was in no mood to appreciate it.

"Tell me whatl" I demanded.

Her cheeks were like banners of crimson. She stammered. "I was t‑told that‑that we should look each other over, get to know one another, and that if we 1‑liked each other, then a‑a marriage would be‑" My face must have shown what I was thinking, for she broke off, leaving the sentence unfinished.

Damn them! Trying to run my life again!

The girl's gray eyes were wide, her childish mouth trembling. 1 quickly fought to control my anger, barrier myself. She was obviously very sensitive, at least an empath, perhaps a telepath. I hoped, helplessly, that she wouldn't cry. None of this was her fault. I could just guess how her parents had been bribed or threatened, how she herself had been coaxed and flattered with the lure of a fine marriage to the heir of the Domain.

"Just what did they tell you about me, Linnea?"

She looked confused. "Only that you're Lord Alton's son, that you've served in the Arilinn Tower, that your mother was Terran‑"

"And you think you can bear that disgrace?"

"Disgrace?" She looked puzzled. "Many of us in the Hellers have Terran blood; there are Terrans in my family. Do you think it is a disgrace?"

What could anyone her age know of this kind of court intrigue? I felt revolted, remembering Dyan's gloating look.

Busy with his own affairs . . . Evidently he had known this was in the wind.

"Damisela, I have no mind to marry, and if I did I would not let Council choose a wife for me." I tried to smile, but I suspect it was grim enough. "Don't look so downcast, chiya, a maiden as pretty as you will soon find a husband you'll like better."

"I have no particular wish to marry," she said with composure. "I had intended to apply for admission at one of the towers; my great‑granddame was trained as a Keeper, and it seemed to her I was well fitted for it. But I have always obeyed my family and if they had chosen me a husband, I was not ill‑content. I am only sorry that I seem not to please you."

She was so calm that I felt trapped, almost frantic. "It is not that you displease me, Linnea. But I would not marry at their bidding." My wrath flared up again; I felt her flinch from its impact. Her hand still rested lightly on my arm, as when we were dancing; she drew it away as if she had been burned. I felt like storming away and actually made a faint move to leave her, when I realized, just in time, that this would be a disgraceful thing to do. To abandon a young girl in the middle of a dance‑floor would be a rudeness no man of breeding would ever commit against a gently reared young girl of unquestionable manners and reputation! I couldn't expose her to such gossip for, inevitably, everyone would be wondering what unspeakable thing she could possibly have done to deserve it. I glanced around. Javanne was dancing at the far end of the ballroom so I led Linnea toward the buffet. I offered her a glass of wine; she refused it with a head‑shake. I got her shallan instead, and stood sipping irritably at the wine myself. I didn't like it.

When I was a little calmer I said, "Nothing is irrevocable yet. You can tell whoever put you up to this‑my father, old Hastur, whoever‑you can tell them you don't like me and that will be the end of it."

She smiled, a faint amused flicker. "But I do like you, Dom Lewis," she said. "I won't lie about it, even if I thought I could. Lord Kennard would know it at once if I tried to lie to him. You're angry and unhappy, but I think if you weren't so angry, you'd be very nice. I would be well content with such a marriage. If you wish to refuse it, Lew, you must do the refusing."

If she had been less young, less naive, I might have flung at her that she could hardly be expected to give up a marriage into Comyn with protest. Even so, I am sure she caught the thought, for she looked distressed.

I shut out her thoughts and said flatly, "A woman should have the privilege of refusing. I thought to spare you the of‑fense of hearing me say to my father that I did not‑" I discovered that I could not simply say that I did not like her. I amended it and said, "That I did not intend to marry at their bidding."

Her composure was disquieting. "No one marries at his own will. Do you really feel that a marriage between us would be unendurable, Lew? It is obvious that they will arrange some marriage or other for you."

For a moment I wavered. She was evidently sensitive and intelligent; she had been considered for tower training, which meant laran. My father had evidently gone, to some pains to choose a woman who would be maximally acceptable to me, one with Terran blood, one capable of that emotional and mental fusion a telepath must have in any woman he is to know intimately. She was pretty. She was no empty‑minded doll, but had wit and poise. For a second I considered. Sooner or later I must marry, I had always known that. A Comyn heir must father children. And, the Gods knew, I was lonely, lonely . . .

And my father, damn him, had counted on just this reaction! My anger flared anew. "Damisela, I have told you why I will not be party to any marriage made as this one was made. If you choose to believe that I have rejected you personally, that is your affair." I drank the last in my wineglass and set it down. "Allow me to conduct you to my kinswomen, since Javanne is much occupied."

Javanne was dancing again. Well, let her enjoy herself. She had been married off at fifteen and had spent the last nine years doing her duty to her family. They wouldn't catch me in that trap!

Gabriel had claimed a dance from Linnell‑I was glad to see it‑but Callina was standing at the edge of the floor. The crimson draperies she was wearing only accentuated the col‑orlessness of her bland features. I presented Linnea to her and asked Callina to look after her while I had a word with my father. She looked curious, evidently sensing my anger. I must be broadcasting it right and left.

My rage mounted as I circled the floor, looking for my father. Dyan had known and Hastur had known‑how many others had been dragged into this? Had they held a Council meeting to discuss the fate of Lord Alton's bastard heir? How long had it taken them to find a woman who would have me? They'd had to go far afield, I noticed, and get one young enough to obey her father and mother without question! I supposed I ought to feel flattered that they'd picked a nice looking one!

I found myself face to face with the Regent I gave him a curt greeting and started to pass him by; he laid a hand on my arm to detain me, wishing me the greetings of the season.

"I thank you, my lord. Have you seen my father?"

The old man said mildly, "If you're storming off to complain, Lew, why not come directly to me? It was I who asked my granddaughter to present the girl to you." He turned to the buffet. "Have you had supper? The fruits are exceptional this season. We have ice‑melons from Nevarsin; they're not usually obtainable in the market."

"Thank you but I'm not hungry," I said. "Is it permitted to ask why you take such an interest in my marriage, my lord? Or am I to feel flattered that you interest yourself, without asking why?"

"I take it the girl was not to your liking, then."

"What could I possibly have against her? But forgive me, sir, I have a certain distaste for airing my personal affairs before half the city of Thendara." I moved my hand to indicate the dancing crowds. He smiled genially.

"Do you really think anyone here is intent on anything but his own affairs?" He was calmly filling a plate for himself with assorted delicacies. Sullenly, I followed suit. He moved toward a couple of reasonably isolated chairs and said, "We can sit here and talk, if you like. What's the matter, Lew? You're just about the proper age to be married."

"Just like that," I said, "and I'm not to be consulted?"

"I thought we were consulting you," Hastur said, taking a forkful of some kind of shredded seafood mixed with greens. "We did not, after all, summon you to the chapel at a few hours' notice, to be married on the spot, as was done only a few years ago. I was given no chance even to see my dear wife's face until a few minutes before the bracelets were locked on our wrists, yet we lived together in harmony for forty years."

My father, speaking of his first years on Terra and being plunged abruptly into their alien customs, had once used a phrase for the way I felt now: culture shock. "With all deference, Lord Hastur, times have changed too much for that to be a suitable way of making marriages. Why is there such a hurry?"

Hastur's face suddenly hardened. "Lew, do you really understand that if your father had broken his neck on those damnable stairs, instead of a few ribs and his collarbone, you would now be Lord Alton of Armida, with all that implies? My own son never lived to see his son. With our world in the shape it's in, none of us can afford to take chances with the heirship of a Domain. What is your specific objection to marriage? Are you a lover of men?" He used the very polite casta phrase and I, used to the much coarser one customary in the Guards, was not for a moment quite certain what he meant. Then I grinned without amusement. "That arrow went wide of the mark, my lord. Even as a boy I had small taste for such games. I may be young, but that young I am not."

"Then what can it possibly be?" He seemed honestly bewildered. "Is it Linnell you wish to marry? We had other marriage‑plans for her, but if both of you really wish‑"

I said in honest outrage, "Evanda protect us both! Lord Hastur, Linnell is my sisterl"

"Not blood‑kin," he said, "or not so close as to be a grave risk to your children. It might be a suitable match after all."

I took a spoonful of the food on my plate. It tasted revolting and I swallowed and set the plate down. "Sir, I love Linnell dearly. We were children together. If it were only to share my life, I could think of no happier person to spend it with. But," I fumbled to explain, a little embarrassed, "after you've slapped a girl for breaking your toys, taken her into bed with you when she had a nightmare or was crying with a toothache, pinned up her skirts so she could wade in a brook, or dressed her, or brushed her hair‑it's almost impossible to think of her as a‑a bedmate, Lord Hastur. Forgive this plain speaking."

He waved that away. "No, no. No formalities. I asked you to be honest with me. I can understand that. We married your father very young to a woman the Council thought suitable, and I have been told they lived together in complete harmony and total indifference for many years. But I don't

want to wait until you've fixed your desire on someone wholly unsuitable, either. Your father married at the last to please himself and‑forgive me, Lew‑you and Marius have been suffering for it all your lives. I am sure you would rather spare your own sons that."

"Can't you wait until I have sons? Don't you ever get tired of arranging other people's lives for them?"

His eyes blazed at me, "I got tired of it thirty years ago but someone has to do it! I'm old enough to sit and think over my past, instead of carrying the burden of the future, but it seems to be left to me! What are you doing to arrange your life in the proper way and save me the trouble?" He took another forkful of salad and chewed it wrathfully.

"How much do you know of the history of Comyn, Lew? In the far‑back days, we were given power and privilege because we served our .people, not because we ruled them. Then we began to believe we had these powers and privileges because of some innate superiority in ourselves, as if having laran made us so much better than other people that we could do exactly as we pleased. Our privileges are used now, not to compensate us for all the things we have given up to serve the people, but to perpetuate our own powers. You're complaining that your life isn't your own, Lew. Well, it isn't and it shouldn't be. You have certain privileges‑"

"Privileges!" I said bitterly. "Mostly duties I don't want and responsibilities I can't handle."

"Privileges," he repeated, "which you must earn by serving your people." He reached out and lightly touched the mark of Comyn, deeply blazed hi my flesh just above the wrist. His own arm bore its twin, whitened with age. He said, "One of the obligations which goes with that, a sacred obligation, is to make certain your gift does not die out, by fathering sons and daughters to inherit it from you, to serve the people of Darkover in their turn."

Against my will, I was moved by his words. I had felt this way during my journey to the outlands, that my position as heir to Comyn was a serious thing, a sacred thing, that I held an important link in an endless chain of Altons, stretching from prehistory to the future. For a moment I felt that the old man followed my thoughts, as he laid his fingertip again on the mark of Comyn on my wrist. He said, "I know what this cost you, Lew. You won that gift at risk of your life. You have begun well by serving at Arilinn. What little re‑

mains of our ancient science is preserved there against the day when it may be fully recovered or rediscovered. Do you think I don't know that you young people there are sacrificing your personal lives, giving up many things a young man, a young woman, holds dear? I never had that option, Lew, I was born with a bare minimum of laran. So I do what I can with secular powers, to lighten that burden for you others who bear the heavier ones. So far as I know, you have never misused your powers. Nor are you one of those frivolous young people who want to enjoy the privilege of rank and spend your life in amusements and folly. Why, then, do you shrink from doing this duty to your clan?"

I suddenly wished that I could unburden my fears and misgivings to him. I could not doubt the old man's personal integrity. Yet he was so completely entangled in his single‑minded plan for political aims on Darkover that I distrusted him, too. I would not let him manipulate me to serve those aims. I felt confused, half convinced, half more defiant than ever. He was waiting for my answer; I shrank from giving it. Tele‑paths get used to facing things head‑on‑you have to, in order to stay even reasonably sane‑but you don't learn to put things easily into words. You get used, in a place like Arilinn, to knowing that everyone in your circle can share all your feelings and emotions and desires. There is no reticence there, none of the small evasions and courtesies which outsiders use in speaking of intimate things. But Hastur could not read my thoughts, and I fumbled at putting it into words that would not embarrass either of us too much.

"Mostly I have never met a woman I wished to spend my life with . . . and, being a telepath, I am not willing to ... to gamble on someone else's choice." No. I wasn't being completely honest. I would have gambled on Linnea willingly, if I had not felt I was being manipulated, used as a helpless pawn. My anger flared again. "Hastur, if you wanted me to many simply for the sake of perpetuating my gift, of fathering a son for the Domain, you should have had me married off before I was full‑grown, before I was old enough to have any feelings about any woman, and would have wanted her just because she was a woman and available. Now it's different." I fell silent again.

How could I tell Hastur, who was old enough to be my grandfather, and not even a telepath, that when I took a woman, all her thoughts and feelings were open to me and

mine to her, that unless rapport was complete and sympathy almost total, it could quickly unman me? Few women could endure it. And how could I tell him about the paralyzing failures which a lack of sympathy could bring? Did he actually think I could manage to live with a woman whose only interest in me was that I might give her a laran son? I know some men in the Comyn manage it. I suppose that almost any two people with healthy bodies can give each other something in bed. But not tower‑trained telepaths, accustomed to that full sharing. ... I said, and I knew my voice was shaking uncontrollably, "Even a god cannot be constrained to love on command."

Hastur looked at me with sympathy. That hurt, too. It would have been hard enough to strip myself this way before a man my own age. Finally he said gently, "There's never been any question of compulsion, Lew. But promise me to think about it. The Storn‑Lanart girl has applied to Neskaya Tower. We need Keepers and psi technicians. But we also need sensitive women, telepaths, to marry into our families. If you could come to like one another, we would welcome her."

I said, drawing a deep breath, "I'll think about it." Linnea was a telepath. It might be enough. But to put it bluntly, I was afraid, Hastur gestured to a servant to take his emptied plate and my nearly untouched one. "More wine?"

"Thank you, sir, but I have already drunk more than I usually do in a week. And I promised my foster‑sister another dance."

Kind as he had been, I was glad to get away from him. The conversation had rubbed me raw‑edged, rousing thoughts I had learned to keep firmly below the surface of my mind.

Love‑to put it more precisely, sex‑is never easy for a telepath. Not even when you're very young and still childishly playing around, discovering your own needs and desires, learning to know your own body and its hungers.

I suppose, from the way other lads talk‑and there's plenty of talk in the cadets and the Guards‑for most people, at least for a time, anyone of the right sex who is accessible and not completely repulsive will do. But even during those early experiments I had always been too conscious of the other party's motives and reactions, and tbey would rarely stand up to so close an examination. And after I went to Ar‑ilinn and submerged myself in the intense sharing and

closeness there, it had changed from merely difficult to impossible.

Well, I had promised Linnell a dance. And what I had told Hastur was true. Linnell was not a woman to me and she would not disturb me emotionally at all.

But Callina was alone, watching a group of classic dancers do a rhythmic dance which mimicked the leaves in a spring storm. Their draperies, gray‑green, yellow‑green, blue‑green, flickered and flowed in the lights like sunshine. Callina had thrown back her hood and, preoccupied in watching the dancers, looked rather forlorn, very small and fragile and solemn. I came and stood beside her. After a moment she turned and said, "You promised Linnell to dance again, didn't you? Well, you can save yourself the trouble, cousin, she and the Storn‑Lanart child are in the balcony, watching and chattering to one another about gowns and hair‑dressing." She smiled, a small whimsical smile which momentarily lightened her pale stern face. "It's foolish to bring little girls that age to a formal ball, they'd be just as happy at a dancing class!"

I said, letting out my pent‑up bitterness, "Oh, they're old enough to be up for auction to the highest bidder. It's how we make fine marriages hi the Comyn. Are you for sale too, damiselal"

She smiled faintly. "I don't imagine you're making an offer? No, I'm not for sale this year at least. I'm Keeper at Neskaya Tower, and you know what that means."

I knew, of course. The Keepers are no longer required to be cloistered virgins to whom no man dares raise even a careless glance. But while they are working at the center of the energon relays, they are required, by harsh necessity, to remain strictly chaste. They learned not to attract desires they dared not satisfy. Probably they learned not to feel them, either, which is a good trick if you can manage it. I wished I could.

I relaxed. Against Callina, tower‑trained and a working Keeper, I need not be on my guard. We shared a deeper kinship than blood, the strong tie of the tower‑trained telepath,

I've been a matrix technician long enough to know that the work uses up so much physical and nervous energy that there's not much left over for sex. The will may be there, but not the energy. The Keepers are required, for their physical and emotional safety, to remain celibate. The others in the

circle‑technicians, mechanics, psi monitors‑are usually generous and sensitive about satisfying what little remains. In any case you get too close for playing the elaborate games of flirt and retreat that men and women elsewhere are given to playing. And Callina understood all this withoug being told, having been part of it

She was also sensitive enough to be aware of my mood. She said, with a faint tinge of gentle malice, "I have heard Linnea will be sent to Arilinn next year, if you both choose not to marry. You'll have time for second thoughts. Shall I ask them to be sure she is not made Keeper, in case you should change your mind?"

I felt somewhat abashed. That was an outrageous thing to say! But what would have infuriated me from an outsider did not trouble me from her. Within a tower circle such a statement would not have embarrassed me, although I would not have felt constrained to answer, either. She was simply treating me like one of our own kind. In the rapport of the tower circles, we were all very much aware of each other's needs and hungers, eager to keep them from reaching a point of frustration or pain.

But now my circle was scattered, others serving hi my place, and somehow I had to cope with a world full of elaborate games and complex relationships. I said, as I would have said to a sister, "They're pressuring me to marry, Callina. What shall I do? It's too soon. I'm still‑" I gestured, unable to put it into words.

She nodded gravely. "Perhaps you should take Linnea after all. It would mean they couldn't put any constraint on you for someone less suitable." She was seriously considering my problem, giving it her full attention. "I suppose, mostly, what they want is for you to father a son for Armida. If you couid do that, they wouldn't care whether you married the girl or not, would they?"

It wouldn't have been difficult to have fathered a child on one of the women in my circle at Arilinn, even though pregnancy makes it too dangerous for a woman to remain in the tower. But the thought of that was like salt in a raw wound. I said at last, and heard my voice crack, "I am a bastard myself. Do you honestly think I would ever inflict that on any son of mine? And Linnea is very young and she was ... honest with me." This whole conversation troubled me for obscure reasons. "And how do you come to know so much

about this? Has my love life become a subject for Council debate, Callina comynara?"

She shook her head pityingly. "No, of course not. But Javanne and I played dolls together, and she still tells me things. Not Council gossip, Lew, just women's talk."

I hardly heard her. Like all Altons, I sometimes have a disturbing tendency to see time out of focus, and Callina's image kept wavering and trembling, as if I saw her through running water or through flowing time. For a moment I would lose sight of her as she was now, pale and plain and crimson‑draped, as she shimmered in an ice‑blue glittering mist. Then she would seem to float, cold and aloof and beautiful, shimmering with a darkness like the midnight sky. I was tormented, struggling with mingled rage and frustration, my whole body aching with it‑

I blinked, trying to get the world back in focus.

"Are you ill, kinsman?"

I realized with sheer horror that I had been, for an instant, on the very edge of taking her into my arms. Since she was not now Keeper within the circle, this was only a rudeness, not an unthinkable atrocity. Still, I must be mad! I was actually trembling. This was insane! I was still looking at Callina, reacting to her as if she were a desirable woman, not bared from me by double taboo and the oath of a tower technician.

She met my eyes, deeply troubled. There was cool sympathy and kindliness in her glance, but no response to my surge of uncontrollable emotion. Of course not!

"Damisela, I apologize profoundly," I said, feeling my breath raw in my throat "It's this crowd. Plays hell with my ... barriers."

She nodded, accepting the excuse. "I hate such affairs. I try never to come to them, except when I must. Let's get into the air for a moment. Lew." She led the way out to one of the small balconies where a thin fine rain was falling. I breathed the cold dampness with relief. She was wearing a long, fine, shimmering black veil that spun out behind her like wings, gleaming in the darkness. I could not resist the impulse to seize her in my arms, crush her against me, press her lips against mine‑Again I blinked, staring at the cool rainless night, the clear stars, Callina calm in her brilliant drapery. Suddenly I felt sick and faint and clung to the balcony railing. I felt myself falling into infinite distances, a wild nowhere of empty space. . . .

Callina said quietly, "This isn't just the crowd. Have you some kirian, Lew?"

I shook my head, fighting to get the world in perspective. I was too old for this, damn it. Most telepaths outgrow these psychic upheavals at puberty. I hadn't had threshold sickness since before I went to Ariiinn. I had no idea why it should overcome me just now.

Callina said gently, "I wish I could help you, Lew. You know what's really wrong with you, don't you?" She brushed past me with a feather‑light touch and left me. I stood in the cold damp air of the balcony, feeling the sting of the words. Yes, I knew what was wrong and resented it, bitterly, that she should remind me from behind the barricade of her own invulnerability. She did not share my needs, desires; it was a torment from which she, as Keeper, was free. For the moment, in my flaring anger at the girl, I forgot the cruel discipline behind her hard‑won immunity.

Yes, I knew what was really wrong with me. At Ariiinn I had grown accustomed to women who were sensitive to my needs, who shared them. Now I had been a long time away, a long time alone. I was even barred, being what I am, from the kind of uncomplicated relief which the least of my fellow Guardsmen might find. The few tunes‑very few times‑ when, in desperation, I had been driven to seek it, it had only made me sick. Sensitive women don't take up that particular profession. Or if they do I've never met them. Leaning my head on the railing, I gave way to envy ... a bitter envy of a man who could find even temporary solace with any woman with a willing body.

Momentarily, knowing it would make it worse in the end, I let myself think of the girl Linnea. Terran blood. A sensitive, a telepath. Perhaps I had been too hasty.

Rage gripped me again. So Hastur and my father thought they could manipulate me no other way, now they tried to bribe me with sex. They had bribed Dyan by putting him hi charge of a barracks‑full of half‑grown boys, who at the very least would feed his ego by admiring him and flattering him. And however discreetly, he thrived on it.

And they would bribe me, too. Differently, of course, for my needs were different, but essentially still a bribe. They would keep me in control, pliable, by dangling a young, beautiful, sexually exciting girl before me, a half‑spoken agreement.

And my own needs, which my telepathic father knew all too well, would do the rest. I felt sick at the knowledge of how nearly I had fallen into their trap.

The festivities inside the ballroom were breaking up. The cadets had long gone back to barracks. A few lingerers were still drinking at the buffet, but servants were moving around, beginning to clear away. I strode through the halls toward the Alton rooms, still alive with rage.

The central hall was deserted, but I saw a light in my father's room and went in without knocking. He was half‑dressed, looking weary and off guard.

"I want to talk to you!"

He said mildly, "You didn't have to charge in here like a cralmac in rut for that." He reached out briefly and touched my mind. He hasn't done that much since I was grown up, and it made me angry that he should treat me like a child after so many years. He withdrew quickly and said, "Can't it wait till morning, Lew? You're not well."

Even his solicitude added to my wrath. "If I'm not, you know whose fault it is. What in the hell do you mean, trying to marry me off without a word of warning?"

He met my anger head‑on. "Because, Lew, you're too proud and too damned stubborn to admit you need anything. You're ready, past ready, for marriage. Don't be like the man in the old tale, who when the devil bade him take the road to paradise, set off on the high‑road to hell!" He sounded as raw as I felt. "Damn it, do you think I don't know how you feel?"

I thought about that for a moment. I've wondered, now and then, if my father has lived alone all these years since my mother died. He'd certainly had no acknowledged mistress. I had never tried to spy on him, or inquire even in thought about his most private life, therefore I was doubly angered that he left me no rag of privacy to cover my nakedness, had forced me to strip myself naked before Hastur and disgrace myself before my cousin Callina.

"It won't work," I flung at him in a fury. "I wouldn't marry the girl now if she was as beautiful as the Blessed Cas‑silda, and came dowered with all the jewels of Carthon!"

My father shrugged, with a deep sigh. "Of course not," he said wearily. "When did you ever do anything so sensible? Suit yourself. I married to please myself; I told Hastur I Would never compel you."

"Do you think you couldT I was still raging.

"Since I'm not trying, what does it matter?" My father sounded as weary as I felt. "I think you're a fool, but if it helps you feel independent and virtuous to go around with aa ache in your"‑to my surprise and shock he used a vulgar phrase from the Guard hall, one I'd never suspected him of knowing‑"then be just as damned stubborn as you want. You're my son all right: you have no more sense than I had at your age!" He shrugged in a way that indicated he was through with the subject. "Threshold sickness? I have some kirian somewhere, if you need it."

I shook my head, realizing that something, perhaps just the flooding of my system with violent anger, had dispelled the worst of it.

"I had something to say to you, but it can wait till morning if you're not in shape to listen. Meanwhile, I want another drink." He started to struggle to his feet; I said, "Let me serve you, Father," and brought him a glass of wine, got one for myself and sat beside him to drink it. He sat sipping it slowly. After a time he reached out and laid a hand on my shoulder, a rare gesture of intimacy from childhood. It did not make me angry now.

Finally he said, "You were at the Council. You know what's going on."

"You mean Aldaran." I was glad he had actually changed the subject

"The worst of it is, I cannot be spared from Thendara, and what's more, I don't think I can make the journey, Lew." His barriers were down, and I could feel his weariness. "I've never admitted, before, that there was anything I could not do. But now," and he gave me his quick, rare smile, "I have a son I can trust to take my place. And since we've both defied Hastur, Thendara might not be too comfortable for you in the next weeks. I'm going to send you to Aldaran as my deputy, Lew."

"Me, Father?"

"Who else? There is no one else I can trust so well. You did as well as I could have done on the fire‑beacon business. And you can claim blood‑kinship there; old Kenniac of Aldaran is your great‑uncle." I had known I was of the Aldaran kin, but I had not known it was so high in the clan, nor so close. "Also, you have Terran blood. You can go and find

out beyond all rumors, what is really happening back there in the mountains."

I felt both elated and uncertain about being sent on this highly sensitive mission, knowing that Father trusted me with it. Hastur had spoken of our duty to serve the Comyn, our world. Now I was ready to take my place among those of our Domain who had done so for more generations than any of us could count. "When do I start?"

"As soon as I can arrange escort and safe‑conduct for you. There's no lime to be lost," he said. "They know you are heir to Comyn. But you are also kinsman to Aldaran; they will welcome you as they would never welcome me." ‑ I was grateful to my father for giving me this mission, then, a new feeling and a good one, I realized that the gratitude need not be all mine. He genuinely needed me. I had a chance to serve him, too, to do something for him better than he could do it himself. I was eager to begin.

Chapter NINE

At this season the sun was already up when the rising‑bell rang in the barracks. Little runnels of snow were melting in the court as they crossed the cobblestones toward the mess hall. Regis was still sleepy in spite of the icy water he had splashed on his face. He felt that he'd almost rather miss breakfast than get up for it at this hour. But he was proud of his good record; he was the only cadet who had never incurred a punishment detail for sleeping through the bell and stumbling in late and half asleep. Nevarsin had done him some good, after all.

He slid into his assigned seat between Danilo and Gareth Lindir. An orderly slapped battered trays in front of them: thick crockery bowls of porridge mixed with nuts, heavy mugs of the sour country beer Regis hated and never touched. He put a spoon distastefully into the porridge.

"Does the food really get worse every morning, or am I imagining it?" Damon MacAnndra asked.

"It gets worse," said Danilo. "Who's capable of imagining anything at this God‑forgotten hour? What's thatl"

There was a small commotion at the door. Regis jerked up his head and stared. After a brief scuffle a cadet was flung off his feet and went reeling across the room, crashed headfirst into a table and lay still, Dyan Ardais was standing in the doorway waiting for the unfortunate cadet to rise. When he did not stir, Dyan motioned to an orderly to go and pick him up,

Damon said, "Zandru's hells, it's Julian!" He got up from his seat and hurried to his friend's side. Dyan was standing over him, looking grim.

"Back to your seat, cadet. Finish your meal."

"He's my friend. I want to see if he's hurt.** Ignoring Dyan's angry glare, Damon knelt beside the fallen cadet; the other cadets, craning their necks, could see the bright smear

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of blood where Julian's head had struck the table. "He's bleeding! You've killed him!" Damon said in a shrill, shaking voice.

"Nonsense!" Dyan rapped out. "Dead men don't bleed like that." He knelt, quickly ran his fingertips over the boy's head and motioned to two third‑year cadets. "Take him back to the staff offices and ask Master Raimon to have a look at him."

As Julian was carried out, Gabriel Vyandal muttered across the table, "It's not fair to pick on us at this hour of the morning when we're all half asleep." It was so quiet in the mess room that his voice carried; Dyan strode across the room and said, looking down at him with a curl of his lip, *Times like this are when you should be most on guard, cadet. Do you think that footpads in the city, or catmen or bandits on the border, will pick an hour of your convenience to attack? This part of your training is to teach you to be on your guard literally every moment, cadets." He turned his back on them and walked out of the room.

Gareth muttered, "He's going to kill one of us some day. I wonder what he'll say then?"

Damon came back to his seat, looking very white. "He wouldn't even let me go with them and hold his head."

Gabriel laid a comforting hand on his arm. He said, "Don't worry, Master Raimon will take good care of him."

Regis had been shocked at the sight of blood, but a sense of scrupulous fairness made him say, "Lord Dyan is right, you know. When we're really in the field, a moment of being off guard can get us killed, not just hurt."

Damon glared at Regis. "It's all right for you to talk, Has‑tur. I notice he never picks on you."

Regis, whose ribs were chronically black and blue from Dyan's battering at sword practice, said, "I suppose he thinks I get enough lumps working out with him in armed‑combat training." It occurred to him that there was an element of cruelty in this too. Kennard Alton had taught him to handle a sword when he was believed to be the best swordsman in the Domains. Yet in daily practice with either Kennard or Lew for two years, he had collected fewer bruises than he had had from Dyan in a few weeks.

A second‑year man said audibly, "What do you expect of the Comyn? They all hang together."

Regis bent his head to the cold porridge. What's the use?

he thought He couldn't show everybody his bruises‑4ie shouldn't have opened his mouth. Danilo was trying to eat with trembling hands. The sight filled Regis with distress but he did not know what he could say that would not be an intrusion.

In the barracks room, Regis quickly made up his bed, helped Damon fix up Julian's cot and arrange his possessions; when Julian returned, at least he would not have to face demerits for leaving his bed and shelf in disorder. After the other cadets had gone off for arms‑drill, he and Danilo remained. It was their turn to sweep the room and clean the fireplace. Regis went meticulously about the work of scraping ashes from the fireplace and cleaning the hearth. You never knew which officer would make inspection and some were stricter than others. He did the work with all the more thoroughness because he detested it, but his thoughts were busy. Had Julian really been hurt? Dyan had been too rough.

He was aware that Danilo, shoving the heavy push‑broom with scowling determination at the far end of the room, was filled with a kind of sullen misery that overlaid everything else. Regis wondered if there was any way to block out other people's emotions, for he was far too sensitive to Danilo's moods. If he knew what Dani was thinking, or why he was so angry and miserable all the time, it might not be so bad, but all Regis got were the raw emotions.

He sensed Lew Alton's presence and looked up to see him coming along the room. "Not finished? Take your time, cadet, I'm a little early."

Regis relaxed. Lew could be strict enough, but he did not go out of his way to look for hidden fragments of dust. He continued his work with the hearth‑broom, but after a minute felt Lew bend and touch his arm. "I want a word with you."

Regis rose and followed him to the door of the barracks room, turning to say over his shoulder, 'Til be with you in a minute, Dani, don't try to shift that table until I can help you." Just outside, aware of the touch of Lew's thoughts, he looked up to face his smiling eyes.

"Yes, I knew the other day, in Council," Lew said, "but I had no chance to speak to you then. When did this happen, Regis? And how?"

"I'm not sure," Regis said, "but somehow, I‑touched‑ Danilo, or he touched me, I'm not really sure which it was,

and some kind of‑of barrier seemed to go down. I don't know how to explain it."

Lew nodded. "I know," he said, "there aren't any words for most of these experiences, and the ones there are, aren't very enlightening. But Danilo? I sensed he had laran the other day, but if he could do that, then‑" He stopped, his brow furrowed, and Regis followed the thought, that would mean he's a catalyst telepath! They're rare, I thought there were no functioning ones left.

"I'll speak to my father before I leave for Aldaran."

"You're going instead of Uncle Kennard? When?"

"A few days before Council season is over, not long now. The trip into the mountains is hard at any season, and impossible after the snows really begin in earnest."

Danilo was standing in the doorway of the barracks room and Regis, recalled abruptly to his work, said, "I'd better get back; Dani will think I'm shirking my share."

Lew took a perfunctory glance inside the room. "Go ahead. It looks all right; I'll sign the inspection report. Finish up at your leisure." He came to Danilo and said, "I'm leaving for Aldaran in a day or two, Dani. I shall be passing Syrtis on my road. Have you any message for Dom Felix?"

"Only that I strive to do my duty among my betters, Captain." His voice was sullen.

"Ill tell him you do us credit, Danilo." The boy did not answer, going off toward the fireplace, dragging the broom. Lew looked after bim with curiosity. "What do you think is bothering him?"

Regis was worried about Danilo's moods. His silent weeping had wakened Regis twice more, and again he had been torn between the desire to console his friend and the wish to respect his privacy. He wished be could ask Lew what to do, but they were both on duty and there was no time for personal problems. Anyway, Lew might be required by Guard regulations‑he didn't really know‑to tell him he should ask his cadet‑master about any personal problem. Regis said at last, "I don't know. Homesick, maybe," and left it at that "How is Julian? Not dead?"

Lew looked at him, startled. "No, no. He'll be all right. Just a bit of a knock on the head." He smiled again and went out of the barracks.

Danilo leaned the broom against the wall and began to

shift the heavy wooden table to get at the litter under it. Regis jumped to catch the other end.

"Here, I told you I'd give you a hand; you could hurt your insides trying to lift a heavy thing like that." Danilo looked up, glowering, and Regis said, "I wasn't shirking, I only wanted to say goodbye to my kinsman. You were rude to him, Dani."

"Well, are we going to work or gossip?" "Work by all means," said Regis, giving his end of the table a heave. "I've nothing to say to you when you're in this mood." He went to fetch the broom. Danilo muttered something under his breath and Regis swung around, demanding, "What did you say?"

"Nothing." Danilo turned his back. It had sounded suspiciously like, "Don't get your hands dirty," and Regis stared.

"What's the matter? Do you think I ought to finish up? I will if you want me to, but I don't think I was away talking that long, was I?"

"Oh, I'd never think of imposing on you, Lord Regis! Allow me to serve you!" The sneer was openly apparent in Danilo's voice now and Regis stared in bewilderment "Danilo, are you trying to fight with me?" Danilo looked Regis up and down slowly. "No, I thank you, my lord. Fight, with an heir to Comyn? I may be a fool, but not such a fool as all that." He squared his shoulders and thrust his lip out belligerently. "Run along to your fencing lesson with Lord Ardais and leave the dirty work to me."

Regis1 bewilderment gave way to rage. "When did I ever leave any dirty work for you or anyone else around here?" Danilo stared at the floor and did not answer. Regis advanced on him menacingly. "Come on, you started this, answer me! You say I haven't been doing my fair share?" No other accusation could have made him so furious. "And take that look off your face or I'll knock it off!"

"Must I watch the very look on my face, Lord Hasturt" The title, as he spoke it, was an open insult, and Regis hit him. Danilo staggered back, sprang up raging and started for him, then stopped short.

"Oh no. You can't get me in trouble that way. I told you I'm not going to fight, Lord Hastur."

"Yes you will, damn you. You started this! Now put up your fists, damn you, or I'll use you for a floor‑mop!"

"That would be fun, wouldn't it," Danilo muttered, "force

me to fight and get me in trouble for fighting? Oh, no, Lord Regis, I've had too much of that!"

Regis stepped back. He was now more troubled than angry, wondering what he could possibly have done to upset Dani this way. He reached out to try to touch his friend's mind, met nothing but surging rage that covered everything else. He moved toward Danilo; Dani sprang defensively alert.

"Zandru's hells, what are you two about?" Hjalmar stepped inside the door, took it all in at a glance and collared Regis, not gently. "I heard you shouting halfway across the courtl Cadet Syrtis, your lip is bleeding."

He let Regis go, came and took Danilo by the chin, turning his face gently up to look at the wound. Danily exploded into violence, pushing his hand away, his hand dropping to knife‑hilt. Hjalmar grabbed his wrist.

"Zandru's hells! Lad, don't do thatl Drawing a knife in barracks will break you, and I'd have to report it! What the hell's the matter, boy, I only wanted to see if you were hurt!" He sounded genuinely concerned. Danilo lowered his head and stood trembling.

"What's between you two? You've been close as brothers!"

"It was my fault," said Regis quietly, "I struck him first."

Hjalmar gave Danilo a shove. It looked rude but was, in truth, rather gentle. "Go and put some cold water on your lip, cadet. Hastur can finish doing the barracks alone. It will teach him to keep his big mouth shut." When Danilo had vanished into the washroom he scowled angrily at Regis. "This is a fine example to set for the lads of lower rank!"

Regis did not argue or excuse himself. He stood and accepted the tongue‑lashing Hjalmar gave him, and the three days of punishment detail. He felt almost grateful to the young officer for interrupting a nasty situation. Why, why, had Danilo exploded that way?

He finished sweeping the barracks, thinking that it was not like Dani to pick a fight.

And he had picked it, Regis thought soberly, throwing the last of the trash, without realizing it, into the newly cleaned fireplace. But why? Had they been tormenting him again about trying to curry favor with a Hastur?

All that day he went about his duties preoccupied and wretched, wondering what had brought his friend to such a point of desperation. He had halfway decided to seek Danilo out in their free time, brave his anger and ask him outright

what was wrong. But he was reminded that he was on punishment detail, which turned out to be the distasteful duty of working with the orderlies sweeping the stables. Afterward it took him a long time to get himself clean and free of the stable stink and he had to hurry to be in time for his new assignment, which he found boring beyond words. Mostly it consisted of standing guard at the city gates, checking permits and safe‑conducts, questioning travelers who had neither, reminding incoming merchants of the rules covering their trade. After that he and a junior officer were assigned supervision of night guard at the city gates, his first use of authority over any of the Guardsmen. He had known, in theory, that the cadets were in training for officers, but until now he had felt like a menial, a flunky, junior to everyone. Now, after a scant half season, he had a responsible duty of his own. For a time he forgot his preoccupation with his friend's trouble.

He came back to barracks near midnight, wondering what duty Danilo had been assigned at this mid‑year rotation. It was strange to walk in and see the night officer simply marking off his name as being on late duty, rather than scolding him for being tardy. He paused to ask the man, "Do you know anything about Julian‑cadet MacAran, sir?"

"MacAran? Yes, he has a concussion, they took him to the infirmary, but he'll be all right in a few days. They sent for his friend to come and stay with him there. His wits were wandering, and they were afraid he'd climb out of bed and hurt himserf. But he recognized Damon's voice. He didn't seem to hear anyone else but when MacAnndra told him to keep quiet and stay put, they say he went to sleep quiet as a baby. Concussion's like that sometimes."

Regis said he was glad to hear Julian was no worse, and went in to his bed. His end of the dormitory was almost empty, with Damon and Julian in the infirmary. Danilo's bed, too, was empty. He must be on night duty. He felt regretful, having hoped for a word with him, a chance, perhaps, to find out what was troubling him, make friends again.

He was wakened, an hour or two later, by the sounds of heavy rain on the roof and raised voices at the doorway. The night officer was saying, "I'll have to put you on report for this," and Danilo answering roughly, "I don't give a damn, what do you think it matters to me now?" A few minutes later he came into the room with blundering steps.

What is the matter with him? Regis wondered. Was he drunk? He decided not to speak to him. If Danilo was drunk enough, or agitated enough, to be rude to the night officer, he might make another scene and find himself in worse trouble yet.

Danilo bumped into Regis' cot, and Regis could feel that Danilo's clothing was soaked through, as if he had been wandering around in the rain. By the dim light left in the washroom at night Regis could see him blundering around, flinging his clothes off every which way, heard the bump as he threw his sword down on his clothing chest instead of hanging it on the wall. He stood under the window for a moment, naked, hesitating, and Regis almost said something. He could have spoken in a low voice without attracting attention; with Damon and Julian both out of the barracks, they were a considerable distance from the other cadets. But the old agonizing fear of a rebuff seized him. He could not face the thought of another quarrel. So he remained silent, and after a time Danilo turned away and got into his own bed.

Regis slept lightly, fitfully, and after a long time woke with a start, hearing again the sound of weeping. This time, although the vibration of misery was there, direct to his senses, Danilo was awake and he was really crying, softly, hopelessly, miserably. Regis listened to the sound for some time, wretchedly torn, unwilling to intrude, unable to endure such grief. Finally his sense of friendship drew him out of bed.

He knelt beside Danilo's cot and whispered, "Dani, what's the matter? Are you sick? Have you had bad news from home? Is there anything I can do?"

Danilo muttered drearily, his head still turned away. "No, no, there's nothing anyone can do, it's too late for that. And for that, for that‑Holy Bearer of Burdens, what will my father say?"

Regis said, in a whisper that could not be heard three feet away, "Don't talk like that. Nothing's so bad it can't be helped somehow. Would you feel better to tell me about it? Please, Dani."

Danilo turned over, his face only a white blob in the darkness. He said, "I don't know what to do. I think I must be going mad‑** Suddenly he drew a long, gasping sob. He said, "I can't see‑who‑Damon, is that you?"

Regis whispered, "No. Damon's in the infirmary with Julian. And everyone else is asleep. I don't think anyone

heard you coming in. I wasn't going to say anything, but you sounded so unhappy . .." Forgetting their quarrel, forgetting everything except this was his friend in some desperate trouble, he leaned forward and laid his hand on Danilo's bare shoulder, a shy, tentative touch. "Isn't there anything I can‑"

He felt the explosion of rage and something else‑fear? shame?‑running up his arm through his fingers, like an electric shock. He drew his hand away sharply as if it had been burned. With a violent, tigerish movement, Danilo thrust Regis angrily away with both hands. He spoke in a strained whisper.

"Damnable‑filthy‑Comyn, get the hell away from me, get your stinking hands off me, you‑" He used a word which made Regis, used as he was to Guard hall coarseness, gasp aloud and draw away, shaking and almost physically sick.

"Dani, you're wrong," he protested, dismayed. "I only thought you were sick or in trouble. Look, whatever's gone wrong with you, I haven't done anything to you, have I? You'll really make yourself ill if you go on like this, Dani. Can't you tell me what's happened?"

"Tell youl Sharra's chains, I'd sooner whisper it to a wolf with his teeth in my throat!" He gave Regis a furious push and said, half aloud, "You come near me again, you filthy ombredin, and I'll break your stinking neck!"

Regis rose from his side and silently went back to his own bed. His heart was still pounding with the physical shock of that burst of violent rage which he had felt when he touched Danilo, and he was trembling with the assault on his mind. He lay listening to Danilo's strained breathing, quite simply aghast and almost physically sick under that burst of hatred and his own failure to get through to him. Somehow he had thought that between two people, both with laran, this kind of misunderstanding could not possibly arise! He lay listening to Danilo's gasping, heard it finally subside into soft sobbing and at last into a restless, tossing sleep. But Regis himself hardly closed his eyes that night.

Chapter TEN

(Lew Alton's narrative)

Heavy rain after midnight had turned to wet snow; the day I was to leave for Aldaran dawned gray and grim, the sun hidden behind clouds still pregnant with unfallen snow. I woke early and lay half asleep, hearing angry voices from my father's room. At first I thought Marius was getting a tongue‑lashing for some minor naughtiness, but so early? Then I woke a little further and detected a quality in Father's voice never turned on any of us. All my life I have known him for a harsh, hasty and impatient man, but usually his anger was kept on a leash; the fully‑aroused anger of an Alton can kill, but he was tower‑disciplined, control normally audible in every syllable he spoke. Hastily I put on a few clothes and went into the central hall.

"Dyan, this isn't worthy of you. Is it so much a matter of personal pride?"

Lord of Light, it happened again! Well, at least, if I knew that note in Father's voice, he wouldn't get off unpunished!

Dyan's voice was a heavy bass, muted to a rumble by the thick walls, but no walls could filter out my father's answering shout; "No, damn it, Dyan, I won't be party to any such monstrous‑**

Out in the hall I heard Dyan repeat implacably, "Not personal pride, but the honor of the Comyn and the Guards."

"Honor! You don't know the meaning of‑**

"Careful, Kennard, there are some things even you cannot say! As for this‑in Zandru's name, Ken, I cannot overlook this. Even if it had been your own son. Or mine, poor lad, had he lived so long. Would you be willing to see a cadet draw steel on an officer and go unpunished? If you cannot

Marion Zimmer Bradley

accept that I am thinking of the honor of the Guards, what of discipline? Would you have condoned such conduct even in your own bastard?"

"Must you draw Lew into every‑**

"I'm trying not to, which is why I came directly to you with this. I do not expect him to be sensitive to a point of honor."

My father cut him off again, but they had both lowered their voices. Finally Dyan spoke again, in a tone of inflexible finality. "No, don't speak to me of circumstances. If you let the respect due to the Comyn be eroded away in times like this, in full sight of every insolent little cadet and bastard in Thendara, how can you speak of honor?"

The violent rage was gone from my father's voice now, replaced by a heavy bitterness. He said, "Dyan, you use the truth as other men use a He, to serve your own ends. I've known you since we were boys, and this is the first tune I've come close to hating you. Very well, Dyan. You leave me no choice. Since you bring me this complaint officially, as cadet‑master to commander, it shall be done. But I find it hard to believe you couldn't have kept it from coming to this."

Dyan thrust the door open and came striding out into the hall. He gave me a brief contemptuous glance, said, "Still spying on your betters?" and went out.

I went to the door he had left open. My father looked up at me blankly, as if he could not remember my name, then sighed and said, "Go and tell the men to gather after breakfast in the main Guard hall. All duty‑lists suspended for the morning."

"What ...?"

"Disciplinary assembly." He raised his thick, knotted hands, gnarled and stiff from the joint‑disease which has ravaged him since I can remember. "You'll have to stand by. I havent the strength for a sword‑breaking any more and I'm damned if I'll leave it to Dyan."

"Father, what happened?"

"You'll have to know," Kennard said. "One of the cadets drew his sword on Dyan."

I felt my face whiten with dismay. That was indeed something which could not be overlooked. Of course I wondered‑who wouldn't?‑what provocation Dyan had given. In my own cadet year, he had dislocated my arm, but even then I had known better than that. Even if two cadets in

some childish squabble drew their pocketknives, it would have been sufficient to have them both expelled in disgrace.

I was amazed that my father had even tried to interfere. It seemed that for once I had misjudged Dyan.

Even so, I made a quick guess at what had happened. If the MacAran boy had died of his concussion and Damon held Dyan responsible‑three different officers had told me of the event and all of them agreed Dyan had been inexcusably rough‑then Damon would have held himself honor‑bound to avenge his friend. Both boys were mountain‑bred and friendship went deep in the Kilghard hills. I did not blame the boy, but I was angry with Dyan. A kinder man would have understood; Dyan, being what he was, might well have shown understanding of the love between them.

Father reminded me that I would need full‑dress uniform. I hurried with my tunic‑laces, wanting to reach the mess hall while the men were still at breakfast.

The sun had broken through the cloud cover; the melting snow lay in puddles all over the cobblestone court, but it was still gray and threatening to the north. I'd hoped to leave the city shortly after daybreak. If it started snowing again later, I'd have a soggy journey.

Inside the mess room there were sausages for breakfast, their rich spicy smell reminding me that I had not eaten yet I was tempted to ask the orderly for a plate of them, but remembered I was in full‑dress uniform. I came to the center of the crowded tables and called for attention.

As I announced the assembly, I glanced at the table where the cadets were seated. To my surprise, Julian MacAran was there, his head heavily bandaged, but there and looking only a little pale. So much for my theory about what had happened! Regis was there, looking so white and sick that for a moment, in dismay, I wondered if he were the disgraced cadet. But no, he would have been under arrest somewhere.

My way back led me past the first‑year barracks room and I heard voices there, so I stopped to see if I should repeat my message to anyone. As I approached I heard the voice of old Domenic. He should have been cadet‑master, I thought bitterly.

"No, son, there's no need for that. Your sword is an heirloom in your family. Spare your father that, at least. Take this plain one."

I had often, thought during my own cadet years that old

Domenic was the kindest man I had ever known. Any sword would do for breaking. The answer was soft, indistinguishable, blurred by a pain which, even at this distance, clamped around me like an iron band gripping my forehead.

Hjalmar's deep voice rebuked gently, "None of that now, my lad. I'll not hear a word against Comyn. I warned you once, that your temper would get you into trouble."

I glanced in, then wished I hadn't. Danilo was sitting on his cot, hunched over in misery, and the arms‑master and Hjalmar were helping him gather his possessions. Danilo! What in all of Zandru's nine hells could have happened? No wonder Father had been willing to plead with Dyan! Could any sane man make a point of honor against such a child? Well, if he was old enough to be a cadet, he was old enough to bear the consequences of a rash act.

I hardened my conscience and went on without speaking. I too had had such provocation‑for some time, while my arm was still in a sling, I'd put myself to sleep nights thinking up ways to kill him‑but I had kept my hands off my sword. If Danilo was not capable of self‑restraint, the cadet corps was no place for him.

By the lime I came back to the Guard hall the men were gathering. Disciplinary assemblies were not common since minor offenses and punishments were handled by the officers or the cadet‑master in private, so there was a good deal of whispered curiosity and muttered questions. I had never seen a cadet formally expelled. Sometimes a cadet dropped out because of illness or family trouble, or was quietly persuaded to resign because he was unable physically or emotionally, to handle the duties or the discipline. Octavien Vallonde's case had been hushed up that way. Damn him, that was Dyan's doing toot

Dyan was already hi place, looking stern and self‑righteous. My father came hi, limping worse than I had ever seen him. Di Asturien brought in Danilo. He was as white as the plastered wall, his face taut and controlled, but his hands were shaking. There was an audible murmur of surprise and dismay. I tried to barrier myself against it Any way you looked at it, this was tragedy, and worse.

My father came forward. He looked as bad as Danilo. He took out a long and formal document‑I wondered if Dyan had brought it already drawn up‑and unfolded it.

"Danilo‑Felix Kennard Lindir‑Syrtis, stand forth," he said

wearily. Danilo looked so pale I thought he would faint and I was glad di Asturien was standing close to him. So he was my father's namesake, as well?

Father began to read the document. It was written hi cos‑to. Like most hillsmen, I had been brought up speaking ca‑huenga and I followed the legal language only with difficulty, concentrating on evety word. The gist of it I knew already. Danilo Syrtis, cadet, in defiance of all order and discipline and against any and all regulations of the cadet corps, had willfully drawn bared steel against a superior officer, his cadet‑master, Dyan‑Gabriel, Regent of Ardais. He was therefore dismissed, disgraced, stripped of all honor and privilege and so forth and so on, two or three times over in different phraseology, until I suspected that reading the indictment had taken longer than the offense.

I was trembling myself with the accumulated leakage of emotion I could not entirely barracade in this crowd. Danilo's misery was almost physical pain. Regis looked ready to collapse. Get it over, I thought in anguish, listening to the interminable legal phrases, hearing the words now only through their agonized reverberations in Danilo's mind. Get it over before the poor lad breaks down and has hysterics, or do you want to see that humiliation, too?

**... and shall therefore be stripped of honorable rank and returned to his home hi disgrace ... in token of which ... his sword to be broken before his eyes and in the sight of all the Guardsmen together assembled. ..."

This was my part of the dirty work. Hating it, I went and unfastened his sword. It was a plain Guardsman's sword, and I blessed the kind old man for that much mercy. And besides, I thought sourly, those heirloom swords are of such fine temper you'd need the forge‑folk and Sharra's fires to make any impression on one!

I had to touch Danilo's arm. I tried to give him a kindly thought of reassurance, that this wasn't the end of the world, but I knew it wasn't getting through to him. He flinched from my gauntleted hand as if it had been a red‑hot branding iron. This would have been a frightful ordeal for any boy who was not a complete clod; for one with laran, possibly a catalyst telepath, I knew it was torture. Could he come through it at all without a complete breakdown? He stood motionless, staring straight forward, eyes half closed, but he kept blinking as

if to avoid breaking into anguished tears. His hands were clenched into tight fists at his side.

I took Danilo's sword and walked back to the dais. I gripped it between my heavily gauntleted hands and bent it across my knee. It was heavy and harder to bend than I'd realized, and I had time to wonder what I'd do if the damned thing didn't break or if I lost my grip and it went flying across the room. There was a little nervous coughing deep in the room. I strained at the blade, thinking, Break, damn you, break, let's get this filthy business over before we all start

screaming!

It broke, shattered with a sound shockingly like breaking glass. If anything, I'd expected a noisy metallic resonance. One half slithered away to the floor; I let it lie.

Straightening my back I saw Regis' eyes full of tears. I looked across at Dyan.

Dyan. ...

For an Instant his barriers were down. He was not looking at me, or at the sword. He was staring at Danilo with a hateful, intense, mocking, satiated look. A look of horrid, satisfied lust. There was simply no other word for it.

And all at once I knew‑I should have known all along‑ exactly how and why Danilo had been persecuted, until in a moment of helpless desperation he had been goaded into drawing a knife against his persecutor ... or possibly against himself.

Either way, the moment the knife was loose from the sheath, Dyan had him exactly where he wanted him. Or the next best thing.

I don't think Til ever know how I got through the rest of the ceremony. My mind retains only shaken vignettes: Danilo's face as white as his shirt after the full‑dress uniform tabard had been cut away. How shabby he looked. And how young! Dyan taking the sword from my hand, smirking. By the time my brain fully cleared again, I was out of the Guard hall and on the stairs to the Alton rooms.

My father was wearily taking off his dress‑uniform. He looked drawn and exhausted. He was really ill, I thought, and no wonder. This would make anyone sick. He looked up, saying tiredly, "I have all your safe‑conducts arranged. There is an escort ready for you, with pack animals. You can get away before midday, unless you think the snow's likely to be too heavy before nightfall."

He handed me a packet of folded papers. It looked very official, hung with seals and things. For a minute I could hardly remember what he was talking about The trip to Ald‑aran had receded very far. I put the papers into my pocket without looking at them.

"Father," I said, "you cannot do this. You cannot ruin a boy's life through Dyan's spite, not again."

**I tried to talk him out of it, Lew. He could have condoned it or handled it privately. But since he made it official, I couldn't pass it over. Even if it had been you, or the Hastur boy."

"And what of Dyan? Is it soldierly to provoke a child?"

"Leave Dyan out of it, son. A cadet must learn to control himself under any and all conditions. He will have the life and death of dozens, of hundreds, of men in his hands some day. If he cannot control his personal feelings ..." My father reached out, laying his hand on my wrist in a rare caress. "My son, do you think I never knew how hard he tried to provoke you to the same thing? But I trusted you, and I was right Fm disappointed in Dani.**

But there was a difference. Though he was perhaps harsher than most people thought an officer should be, Dyan had done nothing to me that was not permitted by the regulations of the cadet corps. I said so, adding, "Do the regulations require that the cadets must endure that from an officer too? Cruelty, even sadistic discipline, is bad enough. But persecution of this kind, the threat of sexual attack‑"

"What proof have you of that?"

It was like a deluge of ice water. Proof. I had none. Only the satisfied, triumphant look on Dyan's face, the sickness of shame in Danilo, a telepathic awareness I had had no right to read. Moral certainty, yes, but no proof. I just knew.

"Lew, you're too sensitive. I'm sorry for Dani, too. But if he had reason to complain of Dyan's treatment of him, there is a formal process of appeal‑"

"Against the Comyn? He would have heard what happened to the last cadet to try that," I said bitterly. Again, against all reason, Father was standing with the Comyn, with Dyan. I looked at him almost in disbelief. Even now I could not believe he would not right this wrong.

Always. Always I had trusted him utterly, implicitly, certain that he would somehow see justice done. Harsh, yes, demanding, but he was always fair. Now Dyan had done‑

again!‑what I had always known Dyan would do, and my father was prepared to gloss it over, let this monstrous injustice remain, let Dyan's corrupt and vicious revenge or whatever prevail against all honor and reason.

And I had trusted him! Trusted him literally with my life. I had known that if he failed in testing me for the Alton gift, I would die a very quick, very painful death. I felt I would burst into a flood of tears that would unman me. Once again time slid out of focus and again, eleven years old, terrified but wholly trusting, I stood trembling before him, awaiting the touch that would bring me into full Comyn birthright ... or kill me! I felt the solemnity of that moment, horribly afraid, yet eager to justify his faith in me, his faith that I was his true‑born son who had inherited his gift and his power. . . .

Power! Something inside me exploded into anguish, an anguish I must have been feeling through all the years since that day, which I had never dared let myself feel.

He hod been willing to kill me! Why had I never seen this before? Cold‑blooded, he had been willing to risk my death, against the hope that he would have a tool to power. Power! Like Dyan, he didn't care what torture he inflicted to get it! I could still remember the exploding agony of that first contact. I had been so deathly ill for a long time afterward that, in his attentive love and concern, I had forgotten‑more accurately, had buried‑the knowledge that he had been willing to risk my death.

Why? Because if I had proved not to have the gift, why, then . . . why, then, my life was of small concern to him, my death no worse than the death of a pet puppy!

He was looking up at me, appalled. He whispered, "No. No, my son, no. Oh, my boy, my boy, it wasn't like that!" But I slammed my mind shut, for the first time deaf to the loving words.

Loving words merely to force his will on me again! And his pain now was for seeing his plans all go awry, when his puppet, his blind tool, his creature, turned in his hand!

He was no better than Dyan then. Honor, justice, reason‑all these could be swept aside hi the ruthless hunger for power! Did he even know that Danilo was a catalyst telepath, that most sensitive and powerful of talents, that talent thought to be almost extinct?

For a moment it seemed that would be the last argument

to move him. Danilo was no ordinary cadet, expendable to salve Dyan's bruised pride. He must be saved for the Comyn at all costs!

With the very words on my lips, I stopped. No. If I told Father that, he would find some way to use Danilo too, as a tool in his driving quest for more power! Danilo was well freed of the Comyn and lucky to be beyond our reach!

My father drew back his extended hands. He said coldly, "Well, it's a long road to Aldaran; maybe you'll calm down and see sense before you get there."

I felt like saying Aldaran, hell! Go do your own dirty work this time, Fm still sick from the last job! I don't give a fart in a high wind for all your power politics! Go to Aldaran yourself and be damned to you!

But I didn't. I recalled that I, too, was Aldaran, and Ter‑ran. I'd had it flung in my face often enough. They all took it for granted that I would feel enough shame at the disgrace of my origins to do anything, anything, to be accepted as Comyn and my father's heir. He'd kept me subservient, unquestioning, all my life, that way.

But Terran blood, so Linnea had said, was no disgrace in the mountains. It had amazed her that I thought it so. And the Aldarans, too, were kinsmen.

My father had allowed me to think the Terrans and the Aldarans were evil. It had suited his purposes to let me think so.

And maybe that was another lie, a step on his road to power.

I bowed with ironic submissiveness. "I am entirely at your command, Lord Alton," I said and turned my back, leaving him without a farewell embrace or a word.

And sealed my own doom.

Chapter ELEVEN

Since Danilo's departure the cadet barracks had been silent, hostile, astir with little eddies of gossip from which Regis was coldly excluded. He was not surprised. Danilo had been a favorite and they identified Regis with the Comyn who had brought about his expulsion.

His own suffering, his loneliness‑all the worse because for a time it had been breached‑was nothing, he knew, to what his friend must have been feeling. Dani had turned on him that night, he realized, because he was no longer just Regis, he was another persecutor. Another Comyn. But what could have made him so desperate?

He went over it again and again in his mind, without reaching any conclusions at all. He wished he could talk it over with Lew, who had been just as shocked and horrified by it. Regis had felt it in him. But Lew had gone to Aldaran, and Regis had no idea when be would be back.

The day before the cadets were dismissed to their homes, to return next summer hi Council season, Regis was scheduled for his regular practice session with Dyan Ardais. He went with the usual blend of excitement and apprehension. He enjoyed his reputation among the cadets as a swordsman too expert for ordinary teaching and the sessions with Dyan challenged him to the utmost, but at the same time he knew these sessions alienated him further from the other cadets. Besides he emerged from them battered, bruised and completely exhausted.

Cadets were readying for practice in the little dressing room off the armory, strapping on the padded surcoats which were worn to protect against the worst blows. The heavy wood and leather practice swords could not kill, but they could inflict substantial injury and pain and even break bones. Regis flung off his cloak and tunic, pulling the padded coat

over his head and flinching as he twisted his body to fasten the straps. His ribs were always sore these days.

As he fastened the last buckle, Dyan strode in, threw his jerkin on a bench and got quickly into his own practice outfit. Behind the thick fencing‑mask he looked like some giant insect. Impatiently he gestured Regis toward the practice room. In his haste to obey Regis forgot to pick up his gauntlets, and the older man said harshly, "After all these months? Look here‑" He thrust out his own clenched fist, pointed to the lump on the tendons on the back of the hand. "I got that when I was about your age. I ought to make you try it one day without gloves; forget again and I will do just that. I promise you'd never forget another time!"

Feeling like a slapped child, Regis went back hastily and snatched up the heavily padded gauntlets. He hurried back. At the far end, one of the arms‑master's aides was giving young Gareth Lindir a lesson, patiently positioning and repositioning his arms and legs, shoulders and hands, after every separate stroke. Regis could not see their faces behind the masks, but they both moved as if they were bored with the business. Bruises were better than that, Regis thought as he hurried to join Dyan.

The bout was brief today. Dyan moved more slowly than usual, almost awkwardly. Regis found himself recalling, with a faint embarrassment, a dream he had had some time ago, about fencing with Dyan. He couldn't remember the details, but for some unrememberd reason it filled him with anxiety. He touched Dyan at last and waited for the older man to regain his stance. Instead Dyan flung the wooden sword aside.

"You will have to excuse me for today," he said. "I am somewhat‑" He paused. "Somewhat‑disinclined to go on." Regis bad the impression that he had intended to plead illness. "If you want to continue, I can find someone to practice with you."

"As you wish, Captain."

"Enough, then." He pulled off his mask and went back into the dressing room. Regis followed slowly. Dyan was breathing hard, his face dripping with sweat. He took up a towel and plunged his head into it. Regis, unbuckling his padding, turned away. Like most young people, he felt embarrassed at witnessing the weakness of an elder. Under the thick surcoat his own shirt was dripping wet; he pulled it off and went to his locker for the spare one he had learned to keep there.

Dyan put aside the towel and came up behind him. He stood looking at Regis' naked upper body, darkened with new and healing bruises, and finally said, "You should have told me. I had no idea I'd been so heavy‑handed." But he was smiling. He reached out and ran both his hands, firmly and thoroughly, over Regis* ribs. Regis flinched from the touch and laughed nervously. Dyan shrugged, laughing in return. "No bones broken," he said, running his fingers along the lowest ribs, "so no harm done."

Regis hurriedly drew on his clean shirt and tunic, thinking that Dyan knew precisely to the inch every time he hit an old bruise‑or made a fresh one!

Dyan sat on the bench, lacing up his boots. He threw his fencing‑slippers into his locker. "I want to talk to you," he said, "and you're not on duty for another hour. Walk down to the tavern with me. You must be thirsty too."

"Thank you." Regis picked up his cloak and they went down the hill to the inn near the military stables, not the big one where the common soldiers went to drink, but the small wineshop where the officers and cadets spent their leisure time. At this hour the place was not crowded. Dyan slid into an empty booth. "We can go into the back room if you'd rather."

"No, this will do very well.**

"You're wise," said Dyan impersonally. "The other cadets would resent it if you kept away from their common haunts and amusements. What will you drink?" "Cider, sir."

"Nothing stronger? Please yourself." Dyan called the waiter and gave his order, commanding wine for himself. He said, "I think that's why so many cadets take to heavy drinking: the beer they serve in the mess is so near undrinkable they take to wine instead! Perhaps we should improve the beer they're given as a way of keeping them soberl"

He sounded so droll that Regis could not help laughing. At that moment half a dozen cadets came in, started to sit at the next table, then, seeing the two Comyn seated there and laughing together, went back and crowded at a smaller table near the door. Dyan had his back turned to them. Several of them were Regis' barracks‑mates; he nodded politely to them, but they pretended not to see.

"Well, tomorrow your first cadet season will be over,** Dyan said. "Have you decided to come back for a second?"

THE HERITAGE OF HASTUR 147

"I'd expected to, Captain."

Dyan nodded. "If you survive the first year, everything else is easy. It's that first year which separates the soldiers from the spoiled children. I spoke to the arms‑master and suggested he try you as one of his aides next year. Do you think you can teach the brats some of the things I've been trying to pound into you?"

"I can try, sir."

"Just don't be too gentle with them. A few bruises at the right time can save their lives later on." He grinned suddenly. "I seem to have done better by you than I thought, kinsman, judging by the look of your ribs!"

The grin was infectious. Regis laughed and said, "Well, you haven't spared the bruises. No doubt I'll be properly grateful for them, some day."

Dyan shrugged. "At least you haven't complained," he said. "I admire that in someone your age." He held Regis' eyes for a split second longer than Regis felt comfortable, then took a long drink from his mug. "I would have been proud of such behavior from my own son."

"I didn't know you had a son, sir."

Dyan poured himself more wine and said, not looking up, "I had a son." His tone did not alter even a fraction, but Regis felt the genuine pain behind Dyan's carefully steady voice. "He was killed in a rockslide at Nevarsin a few years ago."

"I am sorry, kinsman. I had never been told." "He came to Thendara only once, when I had him legitimated. He was in his mother's care so, I saw him very seldom. We never really got to know one another."

The silence stretched. Regis could not barricade the sharp sense of regret, of loss, he could feel in Dyan. He had to say something.

"Lord Dyan, you are not yet an old man. You could have many sons."

Dyan's smile was a mere mechanical stretching of his mouth. "More likely I shall adopt one of my father's bastards," he said. "He strewed them all about the countryside from the Hellers to the Plains of Valeron. It should be easy enough to find one with laran, which is all the Council cares about. I have never been a man for women, nor ever made any secret of it. I forced myself to do my duty by my clan. Once. That was enough." To Regis' awakened sensitivity

he sounded immeasurably bitter. "I refuse to think of myself as a very special sort of stud animal whose fees are paid to Comyn. I am sure that you"‑he raised his eyes and met Regis', again prolonging the glance with intensity‑"can understand what I mean."

Dyan's words struck home, yet his intent look, the feeling he was apparently trying to create, that there was a special rapport between them, suddenly embarrassed the boy. He lowered his eyes and said, "I'm not sure just what you mean, kinsman."

Dyan shrugged and the sudden intensity was gone as quickly at it had come. "Why, just that, being heir to Has‑tur, they've already begun placing you under pressure to marry, just as they did with me when I was your age. Your grandsire has a reputation in Council as a most persistent and tenacious matchmaker. Do you mean he let Festival Night pass without parading a dozen suitable maidens in front of you, in the hope you'd develop an intolerable itch for one of them?"

Regis said stiffly, "Indeed he did not, sir. I was on duty Festival Night."

"Truly?" Dyan raised an expressive eyebrow. "There were a dozen high‑born maidens there, all pretty, and I thought they were all intended for you! I'm surprised he allowed you to stay away."

"I've never asked to be excused from duty, sir. I'm sure Grandfather would not have asked it for me."

"A most commendable attitude," Dyan said, "and one I might have expected from your father's son. But how disappointed the old man must have been! I've accused him to his face of being a disgraceful old procurer!" Dyan was grinning again. "But he assured me that he is always careful to have the wedding properly in order before the bedding."

Regis could not help laughing, although he knew he should be ashamed to join in making fun of his grandfather. "No, Lord Dyan, he hasn't spoken of marriage. Not yet. He only said that I should have an heir as young as possible."

"Why, I'm ashamed of him!" Dyan said and laughed again. "He had Rafael married off by the time he was your age!"

Regis had resented the memory of his father, whose death had robbed him of so much; now he felt an almost wistful longing to know what kind of man he had been. "Kinsman, am I so like my father as they say? Did you know him well?"

"Not as well as I could have wished," Dyan said. "He married young, while I was in Nevarsin where my father's... debaucheries . . . could not contaminate me. Yes, I suppose you are like him." He looked attentively at Regis. "Although you are handsomer than Rafael, handsomer by far."

He was silent, staring down at the swirl in his wineglass. Regis picked up the mug of cider and sipped at it, not looking up. He had grown sensitive to the far‑too‑frequent comments on his good looks at Nevarsin and in the barracks. From Dyan they seemed somehow more pointed. He gave a mental shrug, recalling what else they said in the barracks, that Lord Dyan had an eye for pretty boys.

Dyan looked up suddenly from his glass. "Where do you intend to spend the winter, kinsman? Will you return to Castle Hastur?"

"I think not. Grandfather is needed here, and I think he would rather have me close at hand. The estate is hi good hands, so I'm not needed there."

"True. He lost so much of Rafael's life, I suspect it's a mistake he doesn't want to repeat. I imagine 111 be here too, with crisis on crisis in the city and Kennard ill much of the time. Well, Thendara is an interesting place to spend the winter. There are concerts enough to satisfy any music‑lover. And there are fashionable restaurants, balls and dances, ah* manner of amusements. And, for a young man your age, one should not omit the houses of pleasure. Are you familiar with the House of Lanterns, cousin?"

In contrast to the other flashes of intensity, this was almost too casual. The House of Lanterns was a discreet brothel, one of the very few which were not specifically forbidden to the cadets and officers. Regis knew that some of the older cadets visited the place occasionally but although he shared the curiosity of the other first‑year cadets, curiosity had not yet overcome his distaste for the idea. He shook his head. "Only by reputation."

"I find the place tiresome," Dyan said offhandedly. "The Golden Cage is rather more to my liking. It's at the edge of the Terran Zone, and one can find various exotic entertainments there, even aliens and nonhumans, as well as all kinds of women. Or," he added, again in that carefully casual tone, "all kinds of men or boys."

Regis blushed hard and tried to hide it by coughing as if he'd choked on his cider.

Marion Zimmer Bradley

Dyan had seen the blush, and grinned. "I had forgotten how conventional young people can be. Perhaps a taste for . . . exotic entertainments . . . needs to be cultivated, like a taste for fine wine instead of cider. And three years in a monastery hardly cultivates the taste for any of the finer amusements and luxuries which help a young man to make the most of his life." As Regis only blushed more furiously, he reached out and laid a hand on his arm. "Cousin, the monastery is behind you; have you truly realized that you are no longer bound by all its rules?"

Dyan was watching him carefully. When Regis said nothing, he continued, "Kinsman, one can waste years, precious years of youth, trying to cultivate tastes which turn out to be mistaken. You can miss too much that way. Learn what you want and what you are while you're young enough to enjoy it. I wish someone had given me such advice at your age. My own son never lived to need it. And your father is not here to give it... and your grandfather, I have no doubt, is more concerned with teaching you your duty to family and Comyn than with helping you enjoy your youth!"

Dyan's intensity did not embarrass him now. Regis realized that for a long time he had felt starved for just such an opportunity to talk about these things with a man of his own caste, one who understood the world he must live in. He set down his mug and said, "Kinsman, I wonder if that isn't why Grandfather insisted I should serve in the cadets."

Dyan nodded, "Probably so," he said. "It was I who advised him to send you into the cadets, instead of letting you spend your time in idleness and amusements. There's a time for that, of course. But it's true I felt that time spent in the cadets would teach you, more quickly, the things you'd failed to learn before."

Regis looked at him eagerly. **I didn't want to go in the cadets. I hated it at first."

Dyan laid a light hand on his shoulder again and said affectionately, "Everyone does. If you hadn't, I'd be disturbed; it would mean you'd hardened too young."

"But now I think I know why Comyn heirs have to serve in the cadets," Regis said. "Not just the discipline. I got plenty of that in Nevarsin. But learning how to be one of the people, doing the same work they do, sharing their lives and their problems, so we‑" He bit his lip, searching carefully for words. "So we'll know what our people are."

Dyan said softly, "That was eloquent, lad. As your cadet‑master, I'm content. As your kinsman, too. I wish more boys your age had that kind of understanding. I've been accused of being ruthless. But whatever I've done, I've done it out of allegiance to Comyn. Can you understand that, Regis?"

Regis said, "I think so." He felt warmed, somehow less lonely, by having someone care how he felt or what he thought.

Dyan said, "Do you also understand what I said about how the other cadets would take it ill if you shunned their common amusements.**

Regis bit his lip. He said, "I know what you mean. I do, really. Just the same, I feel very strange about‑" He was suddenly embarrassed again. "About places like the House of Lanterns. Maybe it will wear off as I get older. But I'm a... a telepath‑" How strange it felt to say it! How strange that Dyan should be the first one he told! "And it feels . . . wrong," he said, stumbling from phrase to phrase.

Dyan lifted his glass and drank the last hi it before he answered. "Maybe you're right. Life can be complicated enough for a telepath, without that, too. Some day you'll know what you want, and then will be the time to trust your instincts and your needs." He fell silent, brooding, and Regis found himself wondering what bitter memories lay behind the pensive look. Finally Dyan said, "You'd probably do well, then, to keep clear of such places and wait until, if the Gods are good to you, someone you can love helps you discover that part of your life." He sighed heavily and said, "If you can. You may discover needs even more imperative than those instincts. It's always a difficult balance for a telepath. There are physical needs. And there are needs which can be even stronger. Emotional needs. And that's a balance which can tear any of us to pieces." Regis had the curious feeling that Dyan was not really talking to him at all, but to himself.

Abruptly, Dyan set down his empty wineglass and rose. He said, "But one pleasure which has no danger attached is to watch young people grow in wisdom, cousin. I hope to see much of that growth hi you this winter, and I'll watch with interest. Meanwhile, keep this in mind: I know the city well and it would be a pleasure to show you anything you wish to see." He laughed aloud suddenly and said, "And believe me, cousin, such instruction would at least leave no bruises."

He strode quickly away. Regis, collecting his cloak from

the seat, felt more puzzled than ever, feeling there was some‑thing else Dyan had wanted to say.

He had to pass the table crowded with cadets, lounging over cider or beer; he noticed that they were staring at him in no friendly fashion. None of them offered him even the bare civility of a formal greeting. He set his chin and turned his back on them. He heard one say in a low tone, "Catamite!"

Regis felt a flood of intense anger washing over him. He wanted to turn on the boy and beat him to a crimson pulp. Then he set his jaw, disciplining himself to walk away and pretend he bad not heard. // you listen to dogs barking, you'll go deaf and never learn much.

He remembered various insults be had pretended not to hear, mostly to the intent that the Comyn hung together, that he bad had special favors because he was a Comyn heir. But this one was new. He recalled the taunt Danilo had flung at him the night before his expulsion. Dani was a cristoforo and to him it was more than an insult.

He knew Dyan would have nothing but scorn for such gossip. He never made any secret of his tastes. Yet Regis felt oddly protective toward his kinsman, having sensed his bitterness. He felt a strange wish to defend him.

It occurred to him again, with frustration too new for him to realize it was a commonplace among telepaths, that there were times when laran was absolutely no help at all in personal relationships.

The season ended. The cadets were dismissed to their homes and Regis moved into the Hastur apartments in Comyn Castle. He appreciated the peace and quiet and felt a certain pleasure in being able to sleep as late as he pleased in the morning. And the Hastur cooks were certainly better than those in the Guards mess. The prolonged austerity, though, first in Nevarsin, then in the barracks, had made him almost guilty about this kind of luxury. He couldn't appreciate it as he wanted to.

One morning he was at breakfast with his grandfather when Lord Hastur said abruptly, "You're not looking like yourself. Is something wrong?"

Regis thought that his grandfather had seen so tittle of him that he would have no idea what he usually looked like. He

was too polite to say it, of course, so answered, "Bored, maybe. Not getting enough exercise.*'

It disturbed him that he could not help picking up his grandfather's thoughts: It's wrong to keep the boy hanging about here when I've so little time to spend with him.

Hastur said aloud, "I'm afraid I've been too busy to notice, my boy. I'm very sorry. Would you tike to return to Castle Hastur, or go somewhere else?"

"I wasn't complaining, sir. But I feel I'm no use to you. When you asked me to stay for the winter, I thought there was something I could do to help you.*1

"I wish you could. Unfortunately, you haven't the experience to be a great deal of help yet," Hastur said, hut could not conceal a faint flicker of satisfaction. He's beginning to be interested. "Some time this winter you might attend a few sessions of the Cortes and find out about the problems we're facing. I'll get you a pass. Or you could ride to Edelweiss, spend a few days with Javanne."

Regis shrugged. He found Edelweiss dull. There was no hunting except for rabbits and squirrels, the rain kept them indoors much of the time, and he and Javanne were too far apart in age and too unlike in personality to find much pleasure in each other's company.

"I know it's not very exciting there either," Hastur said, almost apologizing, "but she is your sister, and we do not have so many kinfolk that we can neglect one another. If you want hunting, you know, you are free to go to Armida at any time. Lew is away and Kennard too ill to travel, but you can go there and take a friend."

But the only friend he'd made in the cadets, Regis thought, was sent home in disgrace, "Kennard is ill, sir? What's wrong?"

Danvan sighed. "This climate doesn't agree with him. He grows more crippled every year. He'll be better when the rains‑" He broke off as a servant came in with a message. "Already? Yes, I have to go and talk with a trade delegation from the Dry Towns," he said with weary resignation, laying down his napkin. He excused himself to Regis, adding, "Let me know your plans, lad, and 111 arrange for escort."

Left alone, Regis poured himself another cup of Terran coffee, one of the few luxuries the austere old man allowed himself, and thought it over. The duty visit to Javanne could not, of course be avoided. A visit to Armida could await

Lew's return; he could hardly be intending to spend the winter at Aldaran.

If Kennard was ill, courtesy demanded that Regis pay him a visit in his suite, but for some unknown reason he was unwilling to face the Alton lord. He did not know why. Kennard had always been kind to him. After a time he focused it down to resentment: he stood by and watched Danilo's disgrace and didn't say a word. Lew wanted to interfere, but he couldn't. Kennard didn't care.

And Kennard was one of the most powerful telepaths in the Comyn. Regis, feeling this much resentment, was reluctant to face him. Kennard would know immediately how he felt.

He knew, rationally, that he should go to Kennard at once, if only to tell him about bis newly developing laran. There were training techniques to help him master and control his new facilities. But hi the cadets it had not seemed to matter, and the proper time to speak to Lew about it had never come till too late. Dyan had seemed to take it for granted that he already had what training he needed. Kennard was the obvious one to tell. He admonished himself sternly that he should go at once, now, today.

But he was still reluctant to face him. He decided to go to Javanne for a few days first. By that time perhaps Lew would be back.

A few days later he rode north, the weight of it still on his mind. Syrtis lay half a mile from the northward road and, on an impulse, he told his escort to wait in a nearby village. He rode alone toward Syrtis.

It lay at the far end of a long valley, leading downward to the lake country around Mariposa. It was a clear autumn day, with ripening fruit trees hanging low under their thick harvest and small animals making scurrying noises in the dry brushwood at the side of the road. The sounds and smells made Regis feel well content as he rode along, but as he came down toward the farm his spirits sank. He had been thinking Danilo well off, to be coming home to this pleasant country, but he had not realized how poor the place was. The main house was small, one wing falling into such disrepair that it could hardly have been safe for human habitation. The sparse outbuildings showed how few men must live on the place. The old moat had been drained, ditched and put to kitchen‑gardens with neat rows of vegetables and pot‑herbs.

An old, bent servant told him, touching his breast in rustic courtesy, that the master was just returning from the hunt. Regis suspected that in a place like this rabbit would be more plentiful on the table than butcher's meat.

A tall, aging man in a once‑fine threadbare cloak rode slowly toward him. He was moustached and bearded, and sat his horse with the erect competence of an old soldier. A fine hawk sat, hooded, on his saddle.

"Greetings," he said in a deep voice. "We see few travelers at Syrtis. How may I serve you?"

Regis alighted from his horse, making him a courteous bow. "Dom Felix Syrtis? Regis‑Rafael Hastur, para servirte."

"My house and I are at your service, Lord Regis. Let me see to your mount. Old Mauris is half blind; I'd not trust him with such a fine animal. Will you come with me?"

Leading his horse, Regis followed the old man toward a stone barn hi better repair than most of the outbuildings, being weathertight and newly roofed. At the far end was a screened‑off enclosure; nearer were open box stalls, and Regis tethered his horse in the closest while Dom Felix took a cluster of small birds from the hook at his saddle and unsaddled his mount. Regis saw Danilo's beautiful black gelding in another stall, the old bony hunter Dom Felix had been riding and two good, but aging mares. The other stalls were empty, except for a couple of clumsy plowhorses and a milk animal or two. This was abysmal poverty indeed for a family of noble blood and Regis was ashamed to witness it. He remembered that Danilo had hardly had a whole shirt to his back when he joined the cadets.

Dom Felix was looking at Regis* black mare with the kind of love that men of his type bestowed openly only on their horses and hawks. "A fine mount, vai dam. Armida‑bred, no doubt? I know that pedigree."

"True. A birthday gift from Lord Kennard, before I went to Nevarsin."

"Might I ask her name, Lord Regis?"

"Melisande," Regis told him, and the old man stroked the velvet muzzle tenderly. Regis nodded to Danilo's fine black. "And there is another of the same breed; they might well be foals of the same dam."

"Aye," said Dom Felix curtly, "Lord Alton does not withdraw a gift, however unworthy given." He shut his mouth with a snap and Regis' heart sank; it promised ill for his mission. Dom Felix turned away to see to the hawk, and Regis asked politely, "Had you good hunting, sir?"

"Indifferent," said Dom Felix shortly, taking the hawk from his saddle and carrying her to the enclosure at the far end. "No, my lord, you will frighten a haggard I have here. Be pleased to remain where you are."

Rebuked, Regis kept his distance. When the old man returned, he complimented him on a well‑trained bird.

"It is my life's work, Lord Regis. I was hawk‑master to your grandsire, when your father was a lad,"

Regis raised a mental eyebrow, but in these disturbed days it was not unusual to find a former courtier out of favor. "How is it that you honor my house, Dom Regis?" "I came to see your son Danilo."

The old man's tight‑pressed lips almost disappeared between moustache and chin. Finally he said, "My lord, by your uniform you know of my son's disgrace. I beg you, leave him in peace. Whatever his crime, he has paid more than you can know."

Regis said, in shock, "No! I am his friend!" Now the pent‑up hostility exploded.

"The friendship of a Comyn lord is as the sweetness of a beehive: it bears a deadly sting! I have lost one son already to the love of a Hastur lord; must I lose the last child of my old age as well?**

Regis spoke gently. "All my life, Dom Felix, I have heard nothing but good of the man who gave his life in a vain attempt to shield my father. Do you think me evil enough to wish harm on the house of such a man? Whatever yo.ur grudge against my forefathers, sir, you have no quarrel with me. If Danilo has, he must tell me himself. I had not known your son was so young he must seek a parent's leave to welcome a guest."

A faint, unlovely flush spread slowly over the bearded face. Regis realized too late that he had been impertinent. It came as no surprise that Danilo should be under his father's displeasure, yet he had spoken the truth: by the law of the Domains, Danilo was a responsible adult.

"My son is in the orchard, Dom Regis. May I send to summon him? We have but few servants to bear messages." "I'll walk down, if I may." "Forgive me, then, if I do not accompany you, since you

say your business is with my son. I must take these birds to my kitchen folk. The path will lead you to the orchard."

Regis walked down the narrow lane the old man pointed out. At its end the path opened out to an orchard of apple and pear trees. The fruit, fully ripe, hung glistening among the darkening leaves. Danilo was there at the far end of the grove, his back to Regft^stooping to rake up some mulch around the tree roots. He was stripped to the waist, his feet thrust into wooden clogs. A damp sweat‑rag was tied around his forehead, his dark hair in disorder above it.

The smell of apples was sweet and winy. Danilo slowly straightened his back, picked up a windfall and thoughtfully bit into it. Regis stood watching him, unseen, for a moment. He looked tired, preoccupied and, if not content, at least lulled by hard physical work and the warm sun into a momentary peace.

"Dani?" Regis said at last, and the boy, startled, dropped the apple and stumbled over bis rake as he turned. Regis wondered what to say.

Danilo took a step toward him. "What do you want?"

"I was on the road to my sister's house; I stopped to pay my respects to your father and to see how you did."

He saw Danilo visibly struggling between the impulse to fling the polite gesture back into his face‑what more had he to lose?‑and the lifelong habit of hospitality. At last he said, "My house and I are at your service, Lord Regis." His politeness was exaggerated almost to a caricature. "What is my lord's will?"

Regis said, "I want to talk to you."

"As you see, my lord, I am very much occupied. But I am entirely at your bidding."

Regis ignored the irony and took him at his word.

"Come here, then, and sit down," he said, taking his seat on a fallen log, felled so long ago that it was covered with gray lichen. Silently Danilo obeyed, keeping as far away as the dimensions of the log allowed.

Regis said after a moment, "I want you to know one thing: I have no idea why you were thrown out of the Guards, or rather, I only know what I heard that day. But from the way everyone acted, you'd think I left you to take the blame for something I myself did. Why? What did I do?"

"You know‑" Danilo broke off, kicking a windfall apple with the point of his clog. It broke with a rotten, slushy clunk. "It's over. Whatever I did to offend you, I've paid."

Then for a moment the rapport, the awareness Danilo had wakened in him, flared again between them. He could feel Danilo's despair and grief as if it were his own. He said, harsh with the pain of it, "Danilo Syrtis, speak your grudge and let me avow or deny it! I triSS not to think ill of you even in disgrace! But you called me foul names when I meant you nothing but kindness, and if you have spread lies about me or my kinsmen, then you deserve everything they have done to you, and you still have a score to settle with me!" Without realizing it, he had sprung to his feet, his hand going to the hilt of his sword.

Danilo stood defiant. His gray eyes, gleaming like molten metal beneath dark brows, blazed with anger and sorrow. "Dom Regis, I beg you, leave me in peace! Isn't it enough that I am here, my hopes gone, my father shamed forever‑I might as well be dead!" he cried out desperately, his words tumbling over themselves. "Grudge, Regis? No, no, none against you, you showed me nothing but kindness, but you were one of them, one of those, those‑" He stopped again, his voice tight with the effort not to cry. At last he cried out passionately, "Regis Hastur, as the Gods live, my conscience is clear and your Lord of Light and the God of the cristo‑foros may judge between the Sons of Hastur and me!"

Almost without volition, Regis drew his sword. Danilo, startled, took a step backward in fear; then he straightened and stiffened his mouth. "Do you punish blasphemy so quickly, lord? I am unarmed, but if my offense merits death, then kill me now where I stand! My life is no good to me!"

Shocked, Regis lowered the point of the sword. "Kill you, Dani?" he said in horror. "God forbid! It never crossed my mind! I wished ... Dani, lay your hand on the hilt of my sword."

Confused, startled into obedience, Danilo put a tentative hand on the hilt Regis gripped hand and hilt together in his own fingers.

"Son of Hastur who is the Son of Aldones who is the Lord of Light! May this hand and this sword pierce my heart and my honor, Danilo, if I had part or knowledge in your disgrace, or if anything you say now shall be used to work you harml" Again, from the hand‑touch, he felt that odd little

shock running up his arm, blurring his own thoughts, felt Danilo's sobs tight in his own throat.

Danilo said on a drawn breath, "No Hastur would forswear that oath!"

"No Hastur would forswear his naked word," Regis retorted proudly, "but if it took an oath to convince you, an oath you have." He sheathed the sword.

"Now tell me what happened, Dani. Was the charge a lie, then?"

Danilo was still visibly dazed. "The night I came in‑it had been raining. You woke, you knew‑"

"I knew only that you were in pain, Dani. No more. I asked if I could help, but you drove me away." The pain and shock he had felt that night returned to him in full force and he felt his heart pounding again with the agony of it, as he had done when Danilo thrust him away.

Danilo said, "You are a telepath. I thought‑"

"A very rudimentary one, Danilo," said Regis, trying to steady his voice. "I sensed only that you were unhappy, in pain. I didn't know why and you would not tell me."

"Why should you care?"

Regis put out his hand, slowly closed it around Danilo's wrist. "I am Hastur and Comyn. It touches the honor of my clan and my caste that anyone should have cause to speak til of us. With false slanders we can deal, but with truth, we can only try to right the wrong. We Comyn can be mistaken." Dimly, at the back of his mind, he realized he had said "We Comyn" for the first time. "More," he said, and smiled fleet‑ingly, "I like your father, Dani. He was willing to anger a Hastur in order to have you left in peace."

Danilo stood nervously locking and unlocking his hands. He said, "The charge is true. I drew my dagger on Lord Dyan. I only wish I had cut his throat while I was about it; whatever they did to me, the world would be a cleaner place."

Regis stared, disbelieving. "Zandru! Dani‑"

"I know, in days past, the men who touched Comyn lord in irreverence would have been torn on hooks. In those days, perhaps, Comyn were worth reverence‑"

"Leave that," Regis said sharply. "Dani, I am heir to Hastur, but even I could not draw steel on an officer without disgrace. Even if the officer I struck were no Comyn lord but young Hjalmar, whose mother is a harlot of the streets."

Danilo stood fighting for control. "If I struck young Hjal‑mar, Regis, then I would have deserved my punishment; he is an honorable man. It was not as my officer I drew on Lord Dyan. He had forfeited all claim to obedience or respect."

"Is that for you to judge?"

"In those circumstances ..." Danilo swallowed. "Could I respect and obey a man who had so far forgotten himself as to try to make me his‑" He used a cahuenga word Regis did not know, only that it was unspeakably obscene. But he was still hi rapport with Danilo, so there was no scrap of doubt about his meaning. Regis went white. He literally could not speak under the shock of it.

"At first I thought he was joking," Danilo said, almost stammering. "I do not like such jests‑I am a cristoforo‑but I gave him some similar joke for an answer and thought that was the end of it, for if he meant the jest in seriousness, then I had given him his answer without offense. Then he made himself clearer and grew angry when I answered him no, and swore he could force me to it. I don't know what he did to me, Regis, he did something with his mind, so that wherever I was, alone or with others, I felt him touching me, heard his ... his foul whispers, that awful, mocking laugh of his. He pursued me, he seemed to be inside my mind all the time. All the time. I thought he meant to drive me out of my mind! I had thought ... a telepath could not inflict pain. ... I can't stand it even to be around anyone who's really unhappy, but he took some awful, hateful kind of pleasure in it." Danilo sobbed suddenly. "I went to him, then, I begged him to let me be! Regis, I am no gutter‑brat, my family has served the Hasturs honorably for years, but if I were a whore's foundling and he the king on his throne, he would have had no right to use me so shamefully!" Danilo broke down again and sobbed. "And then . . . and then he said I knew perfectly well how I could be free of him. He laughed at me, that awful, hideous laugh. And then I had my dagger out, I hardly know how I came to draw it, or what I meant to do with it, kill myself maybe. . . ." Danilo put his hands over his face. "You know the rest," he said through them.

Regis could hardly draw breath. "Zandru send him scorpion whips! Dani, why didn't you lay a charge and claim immunity? He is subject to the laws of Comyn too, and a tele‑path who misuses his laran that way ..."

Danilo gave a weary little shrug. It said more than words.

Regis felt wholly numbed by the revelation. How could he ever face Dyan again, knowing this?

/ knew it wasn't true what they said of you, Regis. But you were Comyn too, and Dyan showed you so much favor, and that last night, when you touched me, 1 was afraid . . .

Regis looked up, outraged, then realized Danilo had not spoken at all. They were deeply in rapport; he felt the other boy's thoughts. He sat back down on the log, feeling that his legs were unable to hold him upright.

"I touched you ... only to quiet you." he said at last.

"I know that now. What good would it do to say I am sorry for that, Regis? It was a shameful thing to say."

"It is no wonder you cannot believe in honor or decency from my kin. But it is for us to prove it to you. All the more since you are one of us. Danilo, how long have you had laranT

"I? Laran? I, Lord Regis?"

"Didn't you know? How long have you been able to read thoughts?"

"That? Why, all my life, it seems. Since I was twelve or so. Is that..."

"Don't you know what it means, if you have one of the Comyn gifts? You do, you know. Telepaths aren't uncommon, but you opened up my own gift, even after Lew Alton failed." With a flood of emotion, he thought, you brought me my heritage. "I think you're what they call a catalyst tele‑path. That's very rare and a precious gift." He forebore to say it was an Ardais gift. He doubted if Danilo would appreciate that information just now. "Have you told anyone else?"

"How could I, when I didn't know myself? I thought everyone could read thoughts."

"No, it's rarer than that. It means you too are Comyn, Dani."

"Are you saying my parentage is‑"

"Zandru's hells, no! But your family is noble, it may well be that your mother had Comyn kinsmen, Comyn blood, even generations ago. With full laran, though, it means you yourself are eligible for Comyn Council, that you should be trained to use these gifts, sealed to Comyn." He saw revulsion on Danilo's face and said quickly, "Think. It means you are Lord Dyan's equal. He can be held accountable for having misused you,"

Regis blessed the impulse that had brought him here. Alone, his mind burdened with the brooding, hypersensitive nature of the untrained telepath, under his father's grim displeasure . . . Danilo might have killed himself after all.

"I won't, though," Danilo said aloud. Regis realized they had slid into rapport again. He reached out to touch Danilo, remembered and didn't. To conceal the move he bent and picked up a windfall apple. Danilo got to his feet and began putting on his shirt. Regis finished the apple and dropped the core into a pile of mulch.

"Dani, I am expected to sleep tonight at my sister's house. But I give my word: you shall be vindicated. Meanwhile, is there anything else I can do for you?"

"Yes, Regis! YesI Tell my father the disgrace and dishonor were not mine! He asked no questions and spofce no word of reproach, but no man in our family has ever been dishonored. I can bear anything but his belief that I lied to him!"

"I promise you he shall know the full‑no." Regis broke off suddenly. "Isn't that why you dared not tell him yourself? He would kill‑" He saw that he had, in truth, reached the heart of Danilo's fear.

"He would challenge Dyan," Danilo said haltingly, "and though he looks strong he is an old man and his heart is far from sound. If he knew the truth‑I wanted to tell him everything, but I would rather have him . . . despise me ... than ruin himself.**

"Well, I shall try to clear your name with your father without endangering him. But for yourself, Dani? We owe you something for the injury."

"You owe me nothing, Regis. If my name is clean before my kinsmen, I am content."

"Still, the honor of Comyn demands we right this injustice. If there is rot at our heart, well, it must be cleansed." At this moment, filled with righteous anger, he was ready to fling himself against a whole regiment of unjust men who abused their powers. If the older men in Comyn were corrupt or power‑mad, and the younger ones idle, then boys would have to set it right!

Danilo dropped to one knee. He held out his hands, his voice breaking. "There is a life between us. My brother died to shield your father. As for me, I ask no more than to give my life in the service of Hastur. Take my sword and my

oath, Lord Regis. By the hand I place on your sword, I pledge my life."

Startled, deeply moved, Regis drew his sword again, held out the hilt to Danilo. Their hands met on the hilt again as Regis, stumbling on the ritual words, trying to recall them one by one, said, "Danilo‑Felix Syrtis, be from this day paxman and shield‑arm to me ... and this sword strike me if I be not.just lord and shield to you. ..." He bit his lip, fighting to remember what came next. Finally he said, "The Gods witness it, and the holy things at Hali." It seemed there was something else, but at least their intention was clear, he thought. He slid the sword back into its sheath, raised Danilo to his feet and shyly kissed him on either cheek. He saw tears on Danilo's eyelids and knew that his own were not wholly dry.

He said, trying to lighten the moment, "Now you've only had formally what we both knew all along, bredu." He heard himself say the word with a little shock of amazement, but knew he meant it as he had never meant anything before.

Danilo said, trying to steady his voice, "I should have ... offered you my sword. I'm not wearing one, but here‑"

That was what had been missing in the ritual. Regis started to say that it did not matter, but without it there was something wanting. He looked at the dagger Danilo held out hilt‑first to him. Regis drew his own, laid it hilt‑to‑blade along the other before giving it to Danilo, saying quietly, "Bear this, then, in my service."

Danilo laid his lips to the blade for a moment, saying, "In your service alone I bear it," and put it into his own sheath.

Regis thrust Danilo's knife into the scabbard at his waist It did not quite fit, but it would do. He said, "You must remain here until I send for you. It will not be long, I promise, but I have to think what to do."

He did not say goodbye. It was not necessary. He turned and walked back along the lane. As he went into the barn to untie his horse, Dom Felix came slowly toward him.

"Lord Regis, may I offer you some refreshment?"

Regis said pleasantly, "I thank you, but grudged hospitality has a bitter taste. Yet it is my pleasure to assure you, on the word of a Hastur"‑he touched his hand briefly to sword‑hilt‑"you may be proud of your son, Dom Felix. His dishonor should be your pride."

The old man frowned. "You speak riddles, vai dom."

"Sir, you were hawk‑master to my grandsire, yet I have not seen you at court in my lifetime. To Danilo a choice even more bitter was given: to win favor by dishonorable means, or to keep his own honor at the price of apparent disgrace. In brief, sir, your son offended the pride of a man who has power but none of the honor which gives power its dignity. And this man revenged himself."

The old man's brow furrowed as he slowly puzzled out what Regis was saying. "If the charge was unjust, an act of private revenge, why did my son not tell me?"

"Because, Dom Felix, Dani feared you would ruin yourself to avenge him." He added quickly, seeing a thousand questions forming in the old man's eyes, "I promised Danilo I would tell you no more than this. But will you accept the word of a Hastur that he is blameless?"

Light broke in the troubled face. "I bless you for coming and I beg you to pardon my rough words, Lord Regis. I am no courtier. But I am grateful."

"And loyal to your son," Regis said. "Have no doubt, Dom Felix, he is worthy of it."

"Will you not honor my house, Lord Regis?" This time the offer was heartfelt, and Regis smiled. "I regret that I cannot, sir, I am expected elsewhere. Danilo has shown me your hospitality; you grow the finest apples I have tasted in a long time. And I give you my word that one day it shall be my pleasure to show honor to the father of my friend. Meanwhile, I beg you to be reconciled to your son."

"You may be sure of it, Lord Regis." He stood staring after Regis as the boy mounted and rode away, and Regis could sense his confusion and gratitude. As he rode slowly down the hill to rejoin his bodyguard, he realized what he had, in substance, pledged himself to do: to restore Danilo's good name and make certain that Dyan could not again misuse power this way. What it meant was that he, who had once sworn to renounce the Comyn, now had to reform it from inside out, single‑handedly, before he could enjoy his own freedom.

Chapter TWELVE

(Lew Alton's narrative)

The hills rise beyond the Kadarin, leading away into the mountains, into the unknown country where the law of the Comyn does not run. In my present state, as soon as I had forded the Kadarin I felt that a weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

In this part of the world, five Jays' ride north of Thendara, my safe‑conducts meant nothing. We slept at night in tents, with a watch set. It was a barren country, long deserted. Only perhaps three or four times hi a day's ride did we see some small village, half a dozen poor houses clustered in a clearing, or some small‑holding where a hardy farmer wrested a bare living from the stony and perpendicular forest There were so few travelers here that the children came out to watch us as we passed.

The roads got worse and worse as we went further into the hills, degenerating at times into mere goat‑tracks and trails. There are not many good roads on Darkover. My father, who lived on Terra for many years, has told me about the good roads there, but added that there was no way to bring that system here. For roads you needed slave labor or immense numbers of men willing to work for the barest subsistence, or else heavy machinery. And there have never been slaves on Darkover, not even slaves to machinery.

It was, I thought, small wonder that the Terrans were reluctant to move their spaceport into these hills again,

I was the more surprised when, on the ninth day of traveling, we came on to a wide road, well‑surfaced and capable of handling wheeled carts and several men riding abreast. My father had also told me that when he last visited the bills

Marion Zimmer Bradley

near Aldaran, Caer Donn had been little more than a substantial village. Reports had reached him that it was now a good‑sized city. But this did not diminish my astonishment when, coming to the top of one of the higher hills, we saw it spread out below us in the valley and along the lower slopes of the next mountain.

It was a clear day, and we could see a long distance. Deep in the lowest part of the valley, where the ground was most even, there was a great fenced‑in area, abnormally smooth‑surfaced, and even from here I could see the runways and the landing strips. This, I thought, must be the old Terran spaceport, now converted to a landing field for their aircraft and the small rockets which brought messages from Then‑dara and Port Chicago. There was a similar small landing field near Arilinn. Beyond the airfield lay the city, and as my escort drew to a halt behind me, I heard the men murmuring about it.

"There was no city here when I was a lad! How could it grow so fast?"

"It's like the city which grew up overnight in the old fairy

tale!"

I told them a little of what Father had said, about prefabricated construction. Such cities were not built to stand for ages, but could be quickly constructed. They scowled skeptically and one of them said, "I'd hate to be rude about the Commander, sir, but he must have been telling you fairy tales. Even on Terra human hands can't build so quick."

I laughed. "He also told me of a hot planet where the natives did not believe there was such a thing as snow, and accused him of tale‑telling when he spoke of mountains which bore ice all year."

Another pointed. "Castle Aldaran?"

There was nothing else it could have been, unless we were unimaginably astray: an ancient keep, a fortress of craggy weathered stone. This was the stronghold of the renegade Domain, exiled centuries ago from Comyn‑no man alive now knew why. Yet they were the ancient Seventh Domain, of the ancient kin of Hastur and Cassilda.

I felt curiously mingled eagerness and reluctance, as if taking some irrevocable step. Once again the curiously unfocused time‑sense of the Altons thrust fingers of dread at me. What was waiting for me in that old stone fortress lying at the far end of the valley of Caer Donn?

With a scowl I brought myself back to the present. It needed no great precognition to sense that in a completely strange part of the world I might meet strangers and that some of them would have a lasting effect on my life. I told myself that crossing that valley, stepping through the gates of Castle Aldaran, was not some great and irrevocable division in my life which would cut me off from my past and all my kindred. I was here at my father's bidding, an obedient son, disloyal only in thought and will.

I struggled to get myself back hi focus, "Well, we might as well try to reach it while we still have some daylight," I said, and started down the excellent road.

The ride across Caer Donn was in a strange way dreamlike. I had chosen to travel simply, without the complicated escort of an ambassador, treating this as the family visit it purported to be, and I attracted no particular attention. In a way the city was like myself, I thought, outwardly all Darkovan, but with a subliminal difference somewhere, something that did not quite belong. For all these years I had been content to accept myself as Darkovan; now, looking at the old Terran port as I had never looked at the familiar one at Thendara, I thought that this too was my heritage ... if I had courage to take it

I was in a curious mood, feeling a trifle fey, as if, without knowing what shape or form it would take, I could smell a wind that bore my fate.

There were guards at the gates of Aldaran, mountain men, and for the first time I gave my full name, not the one I bore as my father's nedestro heir, but the name given before either father or mother had cause to suspect anyone could doubt my legitimacy. "I am Lewis‑Kennard Lanart‑Montray Alton y Aldaran, son of Kennard, Lord Alton, and Elaine Mon‑tray‑Aldaran. I have come as envoy of my father, and I ask a kinsman's welcome of Kermiac, Lord Aldaran."

The guards bowed and one of them, some kind of major‑domo or steward, said, "Enter, dom, you are welcome and you honor the house of Aldaran. In his name I extend you welcome, until you hear it from his own lips." My escort was taken away to be housed elsewhere while I was led to a spacious room high in one of the far wings of the castle; my saddle bags were brought and servants sent to me when they found I traveled with no valet. In general they established me in luxury. After a while the steward returned.

"My lord, Kermiac of Aldaran is at dinner and asks, if you are not too weary from travel, that you join him in the hall. If you are trail‑wearied, he bids you dine here and rest well, but he bade me say he was eager to welcome his sister's grandson."

I said I would join him with pleasure. At that moment I was not capable of feeling fatigue; the fey mood of excitement was still on me. I washed off the dust of travel and dressed in my best, a fine tunic of crimson‑dyed leather with breeches to match, low velvet boots, a dress cape lined with fur‑not vanity, this, but to show honor to my unknown kinsman.

Dusk was falling when the servant returned to conduct me to the great dining hall. Expecting dim torchlight, I was struck amazed by the daylight flood of brilliance. Arc‑light, I thought, blinking, arc‑light such as the Terrans use in their Trade City. It seemed strange to go at night into a room flooded by such noonday brilliance, strange and disorienting, yet I was glad, for it allowed me to see clearly the faces in the great hall. Evidently, despite his use of the newfangled lights, Kermiac kept to the old ways, for the lower part of his hall was crammed with a motley conglomeration of faces, Guardsmen, servants, mountain people, rich and poor, even some Terrans and a cristoforo monk or two in their drab robes.

The servant led me toward the high table at the far end where the nobles sat. At first they were only a blur of faces: a tall man, lean and wolfish, with a great shock of fair hair; a pretty, red‑haired girl in a blue dress; a small boy about Marius* age; and at their center, an aging man with a dark reddish beard, old to decrepitude but still straight‑backed and keen‑eyed. He bent his eyes on me, studying my face intently. This, I knew, must be Kermiac, Lord Aldaran, my kinsman. He wore plain clothes, of a simple cut like those the Terrans wore, and I felt briefly ashamed of my barbarian finery.

He rose and came down from the dais to greet me. His voice, thinned with age, was still strong.

"Welcome, kinsman." He held out his arms and gave me a kinsman's embrace, his thin dry lips pressing each of my cheeks in turn. He held my shoulders between his hands for a moment. "It warms my heart to see your face at last, Elaine's son. We hear tidings in the Hellers here, even of the Hali'imyn," He used the ancient mountain word, but without

offense. "Come, you must be weary and hungry after this long journey. I am glad you felt able to join us. Come and sit beside me, nephew."

He led me to a place of honor at his side. Servants brought us food. In the Domains the choicest food is served a guest without asking his preference, so that he need not in courtesy choose the simplest; here they made much of asking whether I would have meat, game‑bird or fish, whether I would drink the white mountain wine or the red wine of the valleys. It was all cooked well and served to perfection, and I did it justice after days of trail food.

"So, nephew," he said at last, when I had appeased my hunger and was sipping a glass of white wine and nibbling at some strange and delicious sweets, "I have heard you are tower‑trained, a telepath. Here in the mountains it's believed that men tower‑trained are half eunuch, but I can see you are a man; you have the look of a soldier. Are you one of their Guardsmen?"

'T have been a captain for three years."

He nodded. "There is peace in the mountains now, although the Dry‑Towners get ideas now and then. Yet I can respect a soldier; in my youth I had to keep Caer Donn by force of arms."

I said, "In the Domains it is not known that Caer Donn is so great a city."

He shrugged. "Largely of Terran building. They are good neighbors, or we find them so. Is it otherwise hi Thendara?"

I was not yet ready to discuss my feelings about the Terrans, but to my relief he did not pursue that topic. He was studying my face in profile.

"You are not much like your father, nephew. Yet I see nothing of Elaine in you, either."

"It is my brother Marius who is said to have my mother's face and her eyes."

"I have never seen him. I last saw your father twelve years ago, when he brought Elaine's body here to rest among her kin. I asked then for the privilege of fostering her sons, but Kennard chose to rear you in his own house."

I had never known that. I had been told nothing of my mother's people. I was not even sure what degree of kin I was to the old man, I said something of this to him, and he nodded.

"Kennard has had no easy life," Kermiac said. "I cannot

blame him that he never wanted to look back. But if he chose to tell you nothing of your mother's kin, he cannot take offense that I tell you now hi my own fashion. Years ago, when the Terrans were mostly stationed at Caer Donn and the ground had just been broken for the fine building at Thendara‑I hear it has been finished in this winter past‑ years ago, then, when I was not much more than a boy, my sister Mariel chose to marry a Terran, Wade Montray. She dwelt with him many years on Terra. I have heard the marriage was not a happy one and they separated, after she had borne him two children. Mariel chose to remain with her daughter Elaine on Terra; Wade Montray came with his son Larry, whom we called Lerrys, back to Darkover. And now you may see how the hand of fate works, for Larry Montray and your father, Kennard, met as boys and swore friendship. I am no great believer in predestination or a fate foretold, but so it came about that Larry Montray remained on Darkover to be fostered at Armida and your father was sent back to Terra, to be fostered as Wade Montray's son, m the hope that these two lads would build again the old bridge between Terra and Darkover. And there, of course, your father met Montray's daughter, who was also the daughter of my sister Mariel. Well, to make a long tale short, Kennard returned to Darkover, was given in marriage to a woman of the Domains, who bore him no child, served in Arilinn Tower‑some of this you must have been told. But he bore the memory of Elaine, it seems, ever in his heart, and at last sought her in marriage. As her nearest kinsman, it was I who gave consent. I have always felt such marriages are fortunate, and children of mixed blood the closest road to friendship between people of different world. I had no idea, then, that your Comyn kinsmen would not bless the marriage as I had done, and rejoice in it."

All the more wrong of the Comyn, I thought, since it was by their doing that my father had first gone to Terra. Well, it was all of a piece with their doings since. And another score I bore against them.

Yet my father stood with them!

Kenniac concluded, "When it was clear they would not accept you, I offered to Kennard that you should be fostered here, honored at least as Elaine's son if not as his. He was certain he could force them, at last, to accept you. He must have succeeded, then?"

"After a fashion," I said slowly. "I am his heir." I did not want to discuss the costs of that with him. Not yet.

The steward had been trying to attract Lord Kermiac's attention; he saw it and gave a signal for the tables to be cleared. As the great crowd who dined at his table began to disperse, he led me into a small sitting room, dimly lighted, a pleasant room with an open fireplace. He said, "I am old, and old men tire quickly, nephew. But before I go to rest, I want you to know your kinsmen. Nephew, your cousin, my son Beltran."

To this day, even after all that came later, I still remember how I felt when I first looked on my cousin. I knew at last what blood had shaped me such a changeling among the Comyn. In face and feature we might have been brothers; I have known twins who were less like. Beltran held out his hand, drew it back and said, "Sorry, I have heard that tele‑paths don't like touching strangers."

"I won't refuse a kinsman my hand," I said, and returned the clasp lightly. In the strange mood I was in the touch gave me a swift pattern of impressions: curiosity, enthusiasm, a disarming friendliness. Kermiac smiled at us as we stood close together and said, "I leave your cousin to you, Beltran. Lew, believe me, you are at home." He said good night and left us, and Beltran drew me toward the others. He said, "My father's foster‑children and wards, cousin, and my friends. Come and meet them. So you're tower‑trained? Are you a natural telepath as well?"

I nodded and he said, "Manorie is our telepath." He drew forward the pretty, red‑haired girl in blue whom I had noticed at the table. She smiled, looking directly into my eyes in the way mountain girls have. She said, "I am a telepath, yes, but untrained; so many of the old things have been forgotten here in the mountains. Perhaps you can tell us what you were taught at Arilinn, kinsman."

Her eyes were a strange color, a tint I had never seen before: gold‑flecked amber, like some unknown animal. Her hair was almost red enough for the valley Comyn. I gave her my hand, as I had done with Beltran. It reminded me a little of the way the women at Arilinn had accepted me, simply as a human being, without fuss or flirtatiousness. I felt strangely reluctant to let her fingers go. I asked, "Are you a kinswoman?"

Beltnm said, "Marjorie Scott, and her sister and brother,

too, are my father's wards. It's a long story, he may tell you some day if he will. Their mother was my own mother's foster‑sister, so I call them, all three, sister and brother." He drew the others forward and presented them. Rafe Scott was a boy of eleven or twelve, not unlike my own brother Mar‑ius, with the same gold‑flecked eyes. He looked at me shyly and did not speak. Thyra was a few years older than Mar‑jorie, a slight, restless, sharp‑featured woman, with the family eyes but a look of old Kermiac, too. She met my eyes but did not offer her hand. 'This is a long and weary journey for a lowlander, kinsman."

"I had good weather and skilled escort for the mountains," I said, bowing to her as I would have done to a lady of the Domains. Her dark features looked amused, but she was friendly enough, and for a little we talked of weather and the mountain roads. After a time Beltran drew the conversation back.

"My father was greatly skilled in his youth and has taught all of us some of the skills of a matrix technician. Yet I am said to have but little natural talent for it. You have had the training, Lew, so tell me, which is the most important, talent or skilir

I told him what I had been told myself. "Talent and skill are the right hand and the left; it is the will that rules both, and the will must be disciplined. Without talent, little skill can be learned; but talent alone is worth little without training."

"I am said to have the talent," said the girl Marjorie. "Uncle told me so, yet I have no skill, for by the time I was old enough to learn, he was old past teaching. And I am half‑Terran. Could a Terran learn those skills, do you think?"

I smiled and said, "I too am part‑Terran, yet I served at Arilinn‑Marjorie?" I tried to speak her Terran name and she smiled at my stumbling formation of the syllables.

"Marguerida, if you like that better," she said softly in ca‑huenga. I shook my head. "As you speak it, it is rare and strange . . . and precious," I said, wanting to add, "like you," Beltran curled his lip disdainfully and said, "So the Comyn actually let you, with your Terran blood, into their sacred towers? How very condescending of them! I'd have laughed in their faces and told them what they could do with their tower!"

"No, cousin, it wasn't like that," I said. "It was only in the

towers that no one took thought of my Terran blood. Among the Comyn I was nedestro, bastard. In Aiih'nn, no one cared what I was, only what I could do."

"You're wasting your time, Beltran," said a quiet voice from near the fire. "I am sure he knows no more of history than any of the Hali'imyn, and his Terran blood has done him little good," I looked across to the bench at the other side of the fire and saw a tall thin man, silver‑gilt hair standing awry all around his forehead. His face was shadowed, but it seemed to me for a moment that his eyes came glinting out of the darkness like a cat's eyes by torchlight. "No doubt he believes, like most of the valley‑bred, that the Comyn fell straight from the arms of the Lord of Light, and has come to believe all their pretty romances and fairy tales. Lew, shall I teach you your own history?"

"Bob," said Marjorie, "no one questions your knowledge. But your manners are terrible!"

The man gave a short laugh. I could see his features now by firelight, narrow and hawklike, and as he gestured I could see that he had six fingers on either hand, like the Ardais and Aillard men. There was something terribly strange about his eyes, too. He unfolded his long legs, stood up and made me an ironic bow.

"Must I respect the chastity of your mind, via dom, as you respect that of your deluded sorceresses? Or have I leave to ravish you with some truths, in hope that they may bring forth the fruits of wisdom?"

I scowled at the mockery. "Who in hell are you?"

"In hell, I am no one at all," he said lightly. "On Darkover, I call myself Robert Raymon Kadarin, s'dei par servu" On his lips the elegant caste words became a mockery. "I regret I cannot follow your custom and add a long string of names detailing my parentage for generations. I know no more of my parentage than you Comyn know of yours but, unlike you, I have not yet learned to make up the deficiency with a long string of make‑believe gods and legendary figures!"

"Are you Terran?" I asked. His clothing looked it

He shrugged. "I was never told. However, it's a true saying: only a race‑horse or a Comyn lord is judged by his pedigree. I spent ten years in Terran Empire intelligence, though they wouldn't admit it now; they've put a price on my head because, like all governments who buy brains, they like

to limit what the brains are used for. I found out, for instance," he added deliberately, "just what kind of game the Empire's been playing on Darkover and how the Comyn have been playing along with them. No, Beltran," he said, swinging around to face my cousin, "I'm going to tell him. He's the one we've been waiting for.**

The harsh, disconnected way he spoke made me wonder if he was raving or drunk. "Just what do you mean, a game the Terrans are playing, with the Comyn to help?"

I had come here to find out if Aldaran was dangerously allied with Terra, to the danger of Comyn. Now this man Kad‑arin accused the Comyn of playing Terra's games. I said, "I don't know what in the hell you're talking about It sounds like rubbish."

"Well, start with this," Kadarin said. "Do you know who the Darkovans are, where we came from? Did anyone ever tell you that we're the first and oldest of the Terran colonies? No, I thought you didn't know that By rights we should be equal to any of the planetary governments that sit in the Empire Council, doing our part to make the laws of the Empire, as other colonies do. We should be part of the galactic civilization we live in. Instead, we're treated like a backward, uncivilized world, poor relations to be content with what crumbs of knowledge they're willing to dole out to us drop by drop, kept carefully apart from the mainstream of the Empire, allowed to go on living as barbarians!"

"Why? If this is true, why?"

"Because the Comyn want it that way," Kadarin said. "It suits their purposes. Don't you even know Darkover is a Terran colony? You said they mocked your Terran blood. Damn them, what do they think they are? Terrans, all of them."

"You're stark raving madl"

"You'd like to think so. So would they. More flattering, isn't it to think of your father's precious caste as being descended from gods and divinely appointed to rule all Darkover. Too bad! They're just Terrans, like all the rest of the Empire colonies!" He stopped pacing and stood, staring down at us from his great height, he was a full head taller than I am, and I am not small. "I tell you, I've seen the records on Terra, and in the Administrative Archives on the Coronis colony. The facts are buried there, or supposed to be buried, but anybody with a security clearance can get them quickly enough."

I demanded, "Where did you get all this stuffl" I could have used a much ruder word; out of deference to the women I used one meaning, literally, stable‑sweepings.

He said, "Remarkable fertile stuff, stable‑sweepings. Grows good crops. The facts are there. I have a gift for languages, like all telepaths‑oh, yes, I am one, Dom Lewis. By the way, do you know you have a Terran name?"

"Surely not," I said. Lewis had been a given name among the Altons for centuries.

"I have stood on the island of Lewis on Terra itself," said the man Kadarin.

"Coincidence," I said. "Human tongues evolve the same syllables, having the same vocal mechanism."

"Your ignorance, Dom Lewis, is appalling," said Kadarin coldly. "Some day, if you want a lesson in linguistics, you should travel in the Empire and hear for yourself what strange syllables the human tongue evolves for itself when there is no common language transmitted in culture." I felt a sudden twinge of dread, like a cold wind. He went on. "Meanwhile, don't make ignorant statements which only show what an untraveled boy you are. Virtually every given name ever recorded on Darkover is a name known on Terra, and in a very small part of Terra at that. The drone‑pipe, oldest of Darkovan instruments, was known once on Terra, but they survive only in museums, the art of playing them lost; musicians came here to relearn the art and found music that survived from a very small geographical area, the British or Brictish Islands. Linguists studying your language found traces of three Terran languages. Spanish in your casta; English and Gaelic in your cahuenga, and the Dry‑Town languages. The language spoken in the Hellers is a form of pure Gaelic which is no longer spoken on Terra but survives in old manuscripts. Well, to make a long tale short, as the old wife said when she cropped her cow's brush, they soon found the record of a single ship, sent out before the Terran colonies had bound themselves together into the Empire, which vanished without trace and was believed crashed or lost. And they found the crewlist of that ship."

"I don't believe a word of it."

"Your belief wouldn't make it true; your doubt won't make it false," Kadarin said. "The very name of this world, Darkover, is a Terran word meaning," he considered a minute, translated, " 'color of night overhead.' On that crewlist

there were di Asturiens and MacArans and these are, you would say, good old Darkovan names. There was a ship's officer named Camilla Del Rey. Camilla is a rare name among Terrans now, but it is the most common name for girl‑children in the Kilghard Hills; you have even given it to one of your Comyn demi‑goddesses. There was a priest of Saint Christopher of Centaurus, a Father Valentine Neville, and how many of the Comyn's sons have been taught in the cris‑toforo monastery of Saint‑Valentine‑of‑the‑Snows? I brought Marjorie, who is a cristoforo, a little religious medal from Terra itself; its twin is enshrined in Nevarsin. Must I go on with such examples, which I assure you I could quote all night without tiring? Have your Comyn forefathers ever told you so much?'

My head was reeling. It soumded infernally convincing.

"The Comyn cannot know this. If the knowledge was lost‑"

"They know, all right," Beltran said with contempt. "Ken‑nard knows certainly. He has lived on Terra."

My father knew this and had never told me?

Kadarin and Beltran were still telling me their tale of a "lost ship" but I had ceased to listen. I could sense Marjorie's soft eyes on me in the dying firelight, though I could no long' er see them. I felt that she was following my thoughts not intruding on them but rather responding to me so completely that there were no longer any barriers between us. This had never happened before. Even at Arilinn, I had never felt so wholly attuned to any human being. I felt she knew how distressed and weary all this had made me.

On the cushioned bench she stretched out her hand to me and I could feel her indignation running up from her small fingers into my hand and arm and all along my body. She said, "Bob, what are you trying to do to him? He comes here weary from long travel, a kinsman and a guest; is this our mountain hospitality?"

Kadarin laughed. "Set a mouse to guard a lion!" he said. I felt those unfathomably strange eyes piercing the darkness to see our hands clasped. "I have my reasons, child. I don't know what fate sent him here, but when I see a man who has lived by a lie, I try to tell him the truth if I feel he's worth hearing it. A man who must make a choice must make it on facts, not fuzzy loyalties and half‑truths and old lies. The tides of fate are moving‑"

I said rudely, "Is fate one of your facts? You called me su‑.perstitious."

He nodded. He looked very serious. "You're a telepath, an Alton; you know what precognition is,"

Beltran said, "You're going too fast. We don't even know why he's come here, and he is heir to a Domain. He may even have been sent to carry tales back to the old graybeard in Thendara and all his deluded yes‑men."

Beltran swung around to face me. "Why did you come here?" he demanded. "After all these years, Kennard cannot be all that eager for you to know your mother's kin, otherwise you would have been my foster‑brother, as Father wished."

I thought of that with a certain regret. I would willingly have had this kinsman for foster‑brother. Instead I had never known of his existence till now, and it had been our mutual loss. He demanded again, "Why have you come, cousin, after so long?"

"It's true I came at my father's will," I said at last, slowly. "Hastur heard reports that the Compact was being violated in Caer Donn: my father was too ill to travel and sent me in his place." I felt strangely pulled this way and that Had Father sent me to spy on kinsfolk? The idea filled me with revulsion. Or had he, in truth, wished me to know my mother's kin? I did not know, and not knowing made me uncertain, wretched.

"You see," said the woman Thyra, from her place in Kad‑arin's shadow, "it's useless to talk to him. He's one of the Comyn puppets."

Anger flared through me. '1 am no man's puppet Not Hastur's. Not my father's. Nor will I be yours, cousin or no. I came at my free will, because if Compact is broken it touches all our lives. And more than that, whatever my father said, I wished to know for myself whether what they had told me of Aldaran and Terra was true."

"Spoken honestly," Beltran said. "But let me ask you this, cousin. Is your loyalty to Comyn ... or to Darkover?"

Asked that question at almost any other time, I would have said, without hesitation, that to be loyal to Comyn was to be loyal to Darkover. Since leaving Thendara I was no longer so sure. Even those I wholly trusted, like Hastur, had no power, or perhaps no wish, to check the corruption of the others. I said, 'To Darkover. No question, to Darkover."

He said vehemently, "Then you should be one of us! You were sent to us at this moment, I think, because we needed you, because we couldn't go on without someone like you!"

"To do what?" I wanted no part in any Aldaran plots.

"Only this, kinsman, to give Darkover her rightful place, as a world belonging to our own time, not a barbarian backwater! We deserve the place on the Empire Council which we should have had, centuries ago, if the Empire had been honest with us. And we are going to have it!"

"A noble dream," I said, "if you can manage it. Just how are you going to bring this about?"

"It won't be easy," Beltran said. "It's suited the Empire, and the Comyn, to perpetuate their idea of our world: backward, feudal, ignorant. And we have become many of these things."

"Yet," Thyra said from the shadows, "we have one thing which is wholly Darkovan and unique. Our psi powers." She leaned forward to put a log on the fire and I saw her features briefly, lit by flame, dark, vital, glowing. I said, "If they are unique to Darkover, what of your theory that we are all Terrans?"

"Oh, yes,1* she said, "these powers are all recorded and remembered on Terra. But Terra neglected the powers of the mind, concentrating on material things, metal and machinery and computers. So their psi powers were forgotten and bred out. Instead we developed them, deliberately bred for them‑that much of the Comyn legend is true. And we had the matrix jewels which convert energy. Isolation, genetic drift and selective breeding did the rest. Darkover is a reservoir of psi power and, as far as I know, is the only planet in the galaxy which turned to psi instead of technology."

"Even with matrix amplification, these powers are dangerous," I said. "Darkovan technology has to be used with caution, and sparsely. The price, in human terms, is usually too high."

The woman shrugged. "You cannot take hawks without climbing cliffs," she said.

"Just what is it you intend to do?"

"Make the Terrans take us seriously!"

"You don't mean war?" That sounded like suicidal nonsense and I said so. "Fight the Terrans, weapons against weapons?"

"No. Or only if they need to be shown that we are neither

Ignorant nor helpless," Kadarin said. "A high‑level matrix, I understand, is a weapon to make even the Terrans tremble. But I hope and trust it will never come to that. The Terran Empire prides itself on the fact that they don't conquer, that planets ask to be admitted to the Empire. Instead, the Comyn committed Darkover to withdrawal, barbarianism, a search for yesterday, not tomorrow. We have something to give the Empire hi return for what they give us, our matrix technology. We can join as equals, not suppliants. I have heard that in the old days there were matrix‑powered aircraft in Arilinn‑"

"True," I said, "as recently as in my father's time.*1

"And why not now?" He did not wait for me to answer. "Also, we could have a really effective communications technique‑"

"We have that now."

"But the towers work only under Comyn domination, not for the entire population of the world."

"The risks‑"

"Only the Comyn seem to know anything about those risks," Beltran said. "I'm tired of letting the Comyn decide for everyone else what risks we may take. I want us to be accepted as equals by the Terrans. I want us to be part of Terran trade, not just the trickle which comes in and out by the spaceports under elaborate permits signed and countersigned by their alien culture specialists to make certain it won't disturb our primitive culture! I want good roads and manufacturing and transportation and some control over the God‑forgotten weather on this world! I want our students in the Empire universities, and theirs coming here! Other planets have these things! And above all I want star‑travel. Not as a rich man's toy, as with the Ridenow lads spending a season now and then on some faraway pleasure world and bringing back new toys and new debaucheries, but free trade, with Darkovan ships coming and going at our will, not the Empire's!"

"Daydreams," I said flatly. "There's not enough metal on Darkover for a spaceship's hulk, let alone fuel to power it!"

"We can trade for metal," Beltran said. "Do you think matrices, manned by psi power, won't power a spaceship? And wouldn't that make most of the other power sources in the Galaxy obsolete overnight?"

I stood motionless for a moment, gripped by the force of

his dream. Starships for Darkover . . . matrix‑powered! By all the Gods, what a dream! And Darkovaos comrades, competitors, not forgotten stepchildren of the Empire. . . .

"It can't be possible," I said, "or the matrix circles would have done it in the old days."

"It was done," Kadarin said. "The Comyn stopped it It would have diluted their power on this world. We turned our back on a Galactic civilization because that crew of old women in Thendara decided they liked our world the way it was, with the Comyn up there with the Gods and everyone else running around bowing and scraping to them! They even disarmed us all. Their precious Compact sounds very civilized, but what it's done, in effect, is to make it impossible to organize any kind of armed rebellion that could endanger the Comyn's power!"

This went along, all too uncomfortably, with some of my own thoughts. Even Hastur spoke noble words about the Comyn devoting themselves to the service of Darkover, but what it came to was that he knew what was best for Darkover, and wanted no independent ideas challenging his power to enforce that "best."

"It's a noble dream. I said that before. But what have I to do with it?"

It was Marjorie who answered, squeezing my hand eagerly. ''Cousin, you're tower‑trained. You know the skills and techniques, and how they can be used even by latent telepaths. So much of the old knowledge has been lost, outside the towers. We can only experiment, work in the dark. We don't have the skills, the disciplines with which we could experiment further. Those of us who are telepaths have no chance to develop our natural gifts; those who are not have no way to learn the mechanics of matrix work. We need someone‑ someone like you, cousin!"

"I don't know ... I have only worked within the towers. I have been taught it is not safe ..."

"Of course," Kadarin said contemptuously. "Would they risk any trained man experimenting on his own and perhaps learning more than the little they allow? Kermiac was training matrix technicians here in the Hellers when you people in the Domains were still working in guarded circles, looked on as sorceresses and warlocks! But he is very old and he cannot guide us now." He smiled, a brief, bleak smile. "We need

someone who is young and skilled and above all fearless. I think you have the strength for it. Have you the will?"

I found myself recalling the fey sense of destiny which had gripped me as I rode here. Was this the destiny I had foreseen, to break the hold of a corrupt clan on Darfcover, to overthrow their grip at our throats, set Darkover in its rightful place among the equals of the Empire?

It was almost too much to grasp. I was suddenly very tired. Marjorie, still stroking my hand gently in her small fingers, said without looking up, "Enough, Beltran, give him time. He's weary from traveling and you've been jumping at him till he's confused. If it's right for him, he'll decide."

She was thinking of me. Everyone else was thinking of how well I could fit into their plans.

Beltran said with a rueful, friendly smile, "Cousin, my apologies! Marjorie is right, enough for now! After that long journey, you're more in need of a quiet drink and a soft bed than a lecture on Darkovan history and politics! Well, the drink for now and the bed soon, I promise!" He called for wine and a sweet fruit‑flavored cordial not unlike the shal‑lan we drank in the valley. He raised his glass to me. "To our better acquaintance, cousin, and to a pleasant stay among us."

I was glad to drink to that. Mariorie's eyes met mine over the rim of her glass. I wanted to take her hand again. Why : did she appeal to me so? She looked young and shy, with an endearing awkwardness, but in the classic sense, she was not beautiful. I saw Thyra sitting within the curve of Kadarin's arm, drinking from his cup. Among valley folk that would have proclaimed them admitted lovers. I didn't know what, if anything, it meant here. I wished I were free to hold Marjorie like that

I turned my attention to what Beltran was saying, about Terran methods used hi the rapid building of Caer Donn, of the way hi which trained telepaths could be used for weather forecasting and control. "Every planet in the Empire would send people here to be trained by us, and pay well for the privilege."

It was all true, but I was tired, and Beltran's plans were so exciting I feared I would not sleep. Besides, my nerves were raw‑edged with trying to keep my awareness of Marjorie under control. I felt I would rather be beaten into bleeding pulp than intrude, even marginally, on her sensitivities. But I kept

wanting to reach out to her, test her awareness of me, see if she shared my feelings or if her kindness was the courtesy of a kinswoman to a wearied guest....

"Beltran," I said at last, cutting off the flow of enthusiastic ideas, "there's one serious flaw in your plans. There just aren't enough telepaths. We haven't enough trained men and women even to keep all nine of the towers operating. For such a galactic plan as you're contemplating, we'd need dozens, hundreds."

"But even a latent telepath can learn matrix mechanics," he said. "And many who have inherited the gifts never develop them. I believed the tower‑trained could awaken latent faran"

I frowned. "The Alton gift is to force rapport. I learned to use it in the towers to awaken latents if they weren't too barricaded. I can't always do it. That demands a catalyst tele‑path. Which I'm not."

Thyra said sharply, "I told you so, Bob. That gene's extinct."

Something in her tone made me want to contradict her. **No, Thyra," I said, "I know of one. He's only a boy, and untrained, but definitely a catalyst telepath. He awakened laran in a latent, even after I failed."

"Much good that does us," Beltran said in disgust. "Comyn Council has probably bound him so tight, with favors and patronage, that he'll never see beyond their will! They usually do, with telepaths. I'm surprised they haven't already bribed and bound you that way."

I thought, but did not say, that they had tried.

"No," I said, "they have not. Dani has no reason at all to love the Comyn ... and reason enough to hate."

I smiled at Marjorie and began to tell them about Danilo and the cadets.

Chapter THIRTEEN

Regis lay in the guest chamber at Edelweiss, tired to exhaustion, but unable to sleep. He had come to Edelweiss through a late‑afternoon fall of snow, still too stunned and sickened to talk, or to eat the supper Javanne had had prepared for him. His head throbbed and his eyes flickered with little dots of light which remained even when his eyes were shut, crawling, forming odd visual traceries behind the eyelids.

Dyan, he kept thinking. In charge of cadets, misusing power like that, and no one knew, or cared, or interfered.

Oh, they knew, he realized. They must have known. He would never believe Dyan could have deceived Kennard!

He remembered that curious unsatisfactory talk in the tavern with Dyan and his head throbbed harder, as if the very violence of his emotions would burst it asunder. He felt all the worse because he had, in truth, liked Dyan, had admired him and been flattered by bis attention. He had welcomed the chance to talk to a kinsman as an equal ... like a stupid, silly child! Now he knew what Dyan was trying to find out, so subtle it was never even an invitation.

It was not the nature of Dyan's desires that troubled him so greatly. It was not considered anything so shameful to be an ombredin, a lover of men. Among boys too young for marriage, rigidly kept apart by custom from any women except their own sisters or cousins, it was considered rather more suitable to seek companionship and even love from their friends than to consort with such women as were common to all. It was eccentric, perhaps, in a man of Dyan's years, but certainly not shameful.

What sickened Regis was the kind and type of pressure used against Danilo, the deliberate, sadistic cruelty of it, the particularly subtle revenge Dyan had taken for the wound to his pride.

Petty harrassment would have been cruel but understandable. But to use laran against him! To force himself on Danilo's mind, to torment him that way! Regis felt physically ill with disgust

Besides, he thought, still tossing restlessly, there were enough men or young lads who would have welcomed Dyan's interest. Some, perhaps, only because Dyan was a Comyn lord, rich and able to give presents and privileges to his friends, but others, certainly, would find Dyan a charming, pleasing and sophisticated companion. He could have had a dozen minions or lovers and no one would have thought of criticizing him. But some perverse cruelty made him seek the one boy in the cadets who would have none of him. A cristo‑foro.

He turned on his side, thrust a pillow over his face to shut out the light of the single candle he was too weary to get up and extinguish, and tried to sleep. But his mind kept going back to the frightening, disturbingly sexual nightmares which had preceded the wakening of his own laran. He knew now how Dyan had pursued Danilo even in sleep, enjoying the boy's fright and shame. And he knew now the ultimate corruption of power: to make another person a toy to do your will.

Was Dyan mad, then? Regis considered. No, he was very sane, to choose a poor boy, one without powerful friends or patrons. He played with Dani as a cat plays with a captive bird, torturing where he could not kill. Regis felt sick again. Pleasure in pain. Did it give Dyan that kind of pleasure to batter him black and blue at swordplay? With the vivid tactile memory of a telepath he relived that moment when Dyan had run his hands over his bruised body, the deliberate sensual quality of the touch. He felt physically used, contaminated, shamed. If Dyan had been physically present then, Regis would have struck him and dared the consequences himself.

And Dani was a catalyst telepath. That terrible force, that loathsome compulsion, against the rarest and most sensitive of telepaths!

Again and again, compulsively, he returned to that night in the barracks when he had tried‑and failed‑to reach out to Danilo and comfort him. He felt again and again the pain, the physical and mental shock of that wild rejection, the flood of guilt, terror, shame which had flooded him from that

brief and innocent touch on Danilo's bare shoulder. Cassilda, blessed Mother of the Comyn! Regis thought in scalding shame, I touched him! Is it any wonder he thought me no better than Dyanl

He turned over on his back and lay staring at the vaulted ceiling, feeling his body ice over with dread. Dyan was a member of Council. They could not be so corrupt that they would know what Dyan had done, and say nothing. But who could tell them?

The single candle near his bed wavered, flickered in and out of focus; colors looped and spun across his visual field and the room swelled up, receded and shrank until it seemed to lie far away, then loom enormously around him in great echoing space.

He recognized the feeling from when Lew gave him kirian, but he was not drugged now!

He clutched at the bedclothes, squeezing his eyes shut. He could still see the candleflame, a dark fire printed inside his eyelids, the room around him lit with blazing brilliance, reversed afterimages, dark to bright and bright to dark, and a roaring in his ears like the distant roaring of a forest fire . . . ... The fire‑lines at Armida! For an instant it seemed that he saw Lew's face again, crimson, gazing into a great fire, ' drawn with terror and wonder, then the face of a woman, shining, ecstatic, crowned with fire, burning, burning alive in the flames ... Sharra, golden‑chained Forge‑Goddess. The room was alive with the fire and he burrowed beneath the blankets, sunk, battered, swirled. The room was dissolving around him, tilting ... every thread in the smooth fine linen of the blankets seemed to cut into him, hard and rough, the .twisted fibers of blanket trying to curl and frizzle and dig ..painfully into his skin, like cutting edges. He heard someone Inoan aloud and wondered who was there moaning and .crying like that. The very air seemed to separate itself and come apart against his skin as if he had to sort it out into little droplets before he could breathe. His own breath hissed and whistled and moaned as it went in and out, like searing fire, to be quenched by the separate droplets of water in bis ^ lungs....