The Sword of Aldones

CHAPTER FOUR

Marius leaned across his saddle as I laid the insulated sword across the pommel of my own.

“Going to unwrap it here?”

Around us the thin morning air was as expressionless as his face. Behind us the foothills rose; and J caught the thin pungent smell of slopes scorched by forest fire, drifting down from the Hellers. Further back in the clearing, the other Comyn waited.

My barriers were down, and I could feel the impact of their emotions. Hostility, curiosity, disbelief or contempt from the Ardais and Aillard and Ridenow men; interested sympathy, and disquiet from the Hasturs and strangely, from Lerrys Ridenow.

I would have preferred to do this thing privately. The thought of a hostile audience unnerved me. Knowing that my brother’s life depended on my own nerves and control didn’t help, either. Suddenly, I shivered. If Marius died — and he very likely would — only these witnesses would stand between me and a charge of murder. We were gambling on something we couldn’t possibly be sure about; and I was scared.

The Alton focus is not easy. Having both parties aware and willing doesn’t make it easy, even for two mature telepaths; it just makes it possible.

What we intended was to link minds — not in ordinary telepathic contact; not even in the forced rapport which an Alton — or, sometimes, a Hastur — can impose on another mind. But complete, and mutual rapport; conscious and subconscious mind, telepathic and psychokinetic nerve systems, time-scanning and coordinating consciousness, energonic functions, so that in effect we would function as one hyperdeveloped brain in two bodies.

My father had done it with me — once, for about thirty seconds — with my full awareness that it would probably kill me. He had known; it was the only thing that would prove to them that I was a true Alton. It had forced the Comyn to accept me. I had been trained for days, and safeguarded by every bit of his skill. Marius was taking it on almost unprepared.

I seemed to be seeing my brother for the first time. The difference in our ages, his freakish face and alien eyes, had made him a stranger; the knowledge that he might die beneath my mind, a few minutes from now, made him seem somehow less real; shadowy, like someone in a long dream. I made my voice rough.

“Want to back down, Marius? There’s still time.” He looked amused again. “Jealous? Want to keep the laran privilege all to yourself?” he asked softly. “Don’t want any more Altons in the Comyn, huh?”

I put the question point blank. “Do you have the Alton Gift, Marius?”

He shrugged. “I haven’t the least notion. I’ve never tried to find out. What with one thing and another, I was given to understand that it would be unwarrantable insolence on my part.”

I felt cold. That sentence outlined my brother’s Me. I’d have to remember that. There was a chance that what I gave him would not be death, but full Comyn status as an Alton. If he thought it was worth the gamble, what right had I to deny him? My father had gambled with me, and won. I lowered my head, and started to strip the insulating cloth from the sword.

“Is it a real sword?” Derik Elhalyn asked, guiding his horse toward us.

I shook my head, giving the hilt a hard twist. It came off in my hand, and I removed the silk-wrapped thing inside. A familiar hand crushed down on my chest.

“No,” I said, “the sword’s camouflage. You can look at it.” I thrust the pieces, hilt and blade, at him, but he backed away convulsively.

I saw the men hide unkind grins. But it wasn’t funny — that Derik, Lord of the Comyn, was a coward. Hastur took the pieces and fitted them neatly together.

“The platinum and sapphires in. this thing would buy a good sized city,” he said, “But Lew’s got the dangerous part.”

I stripped the matrix, feeling the familiar live warmth between my hands. It was egg-shaped and not quite egg-sized, a hunk of dull metal laced with little ribbons of shinier metal, and starred with a pattern of blue winking eyes. “The pattern of sapphires in the sword hilt — sensitized carbon-matches the pattern of the matrix. They’ve altered my nerve reactions some way, to respond to it—” I stopped, my throat dry. What idiocy of self-flagellation had made me bring the thing back to Darkover? I was walking back, on my own feet, into the corner of hell that Kadarin had opened for me.

“Just what are you going to do?” Derik asked.

I tried to put it into words he’d understand. “All over the Hellers, there are certain spots which are activated-magnetized, somehow, to respond to the — the vibrations that key in Sharra. They can be used to draw on the power of Sharra.”

Nobody asked the question I feared. What is Sharra? I would have had to say I didn’t know. I knew what it could do, but I didn’t know what it was. Folklore says a goddess turned demon. I didn’t want to theorize about Sharra. I wanted to stay away from it.

And that was the one thing I couldn’t do.

Hastur took pity on me. “Once a certain locus has been put into key with the Sharra matrix, and the Sharra forces — as was done, years ago — a residue of power remains, and that spot can be drawn on. Lew has kept the matrix all these years, hoping for a chance to find these spots, through the original activator, and de-activate them. Once all the activated sites are released, the matrix can be monitored and then destroyed. But even an Alton telepath can’t do that sort of work without a focus. One body can’t handle that kind of vibration alone.”

“And I’m the focus, if I live that long,” Marius said impatiently. “Can we get on with it?”

I gave him one quick look; then, without further preliminary, made contact with his mind.

There is no way to describe the first shock of rapport. The acceleration of a jet, the hurt of a punch in the solar plexus, the shock of diving headfirst into liquid oxygen, might approximate it if you could live through all three at once. I felt Marius physically slump in his saddle under the impact of it, and felt every defense of his mind concentrated to blocking me away. The human mind wasn’t built for this. Blind instinct locked his barriers against me; a normal mind would die under the thrust needed to shatter that kind of resistance.

It was just as bald as that. If he had inherited the Alton Gift, he wouldn’t die. If he hadn’t, it would kill him.

Inwardly I was concentrated on Marius, in agonized concentration, but outwardly every detail around us was cut sharp and clear on my senses, as if etched there in acid; the cold sweat? running down my body, the pity in the old Regent’s eyes, the faces of the men around us. I heard Lerrys moaning, “Stop them! Stop them! It’s killing them both!”

There was an instant of agony so great I thought I would Scream aloud, the tension of a bow drawn back — and back — and bent to the very point where it must snap, where even the snap and break of death would be relief unspeakable.

Regis Hastur moved like a thrown spear; he tore the sword hilt from Hastur’s hands and forced the matching pattern of gleaming stones into Marius’ clenched fists. I saw, and felt, the agony dissolve in my brother’s face, then the web of focused thought spread, gleamed, and wove together. Marius’ mind firmed, held, a tangible rock of strength, against my own.

Alton! Terran blood in his veins — but true Alton, and my brother!

My sigh of relief caught almost into a sob. There was no need of words, but I spoke anyhow. “All right, brother?”

“Fine,” he said, and stared at the sword hilt in his hands. “How the hell did I get hold of this thing?”

I handed him the Sharra matrix. I tensed in the familiar, breathless anticipation of anguish as his hands closed around it; but there was nothing but the familiar sense of rapport. I let my breath go.

“That’s that,” I said. “Well, Hastur?”

He made a brief, grave bow to Marius; a formal sign of recognition. Then he said quietly, “You’re in charge.”

I looked around at the mounted men. “Some of the activated spots are near here,” I said, “and the sooner we break them up, the sooner we’re safe. But—” I paused. I’d been so intent on the horror that possessed me, I hadn’t thought to ask for a larger escort of mounted men. Besides the Hasturs, Dyan, Derik and the Ridenow brothers, there were only a scant half dozen guardsmen.

I said, “Sometimes the trailmen come this close to the Hidden City—”

“Not since the ’Narr Campaign,” said Lerrys languidly. His unspoken thought was clear. You and your friends of Sharra stirred them up against us. Then you cleared out, but we did the fighting!

“Just the same—” I looked up at the thick branches. Was it safe to ride so far with so few? Some of the Trailmen, far in the Hellers, are peaceful arboreal humanoids, no more harmful than so many monkeys. But those who have overflowed from the country around Aldaran, where every sort of human and half-human gathered, are a mixed breed — and dangerous.

Finally I shrugged. “I’m not afraid if you’re not.”

Dyan jeered, “You and your brother made a boast, Alton. Are you afraid someone will ask you to fulfil it?”

Nothing, I knew, would have suited him better than for Marius to break under my mind, and die.

I raised my eyes at Marius in question. He nodded, and we rode into the shadow of the trees.

For hours we rode under hanging branches, my mind in acute subliminal concentration on the power spots we could sense through the live crystal. My body and mind were aching with uncomfortable awareness; I wasn’t used to this kind of prolonged mental strain any more — and what was more, I hadn’t been on a horse since I left Darkover. They talk about the power of mind over matter. It doesn’t work that way. A sore backside is just as effective an inhibitor of concentration as anything I know about.

The red sun had begun to swing downward when I reined in beside Hastur. “Listen,” I said, low, “we’re being decoyed. I was fairly sure no one else on Darkover knew I had the matrix, but someone must. Someone’s taking power from the activated spots and drawing us.” He regarded me gravely. “Is that all?”

“I don’t—”

He beckoned to Regis; the boy rode up and said, “We’re being followed, Lew. I thought so before; now I’m sure of it. I’ve been in trailman country before this.”

I glanced up at the thick branches, meeting overhead. Above there, I knew, old tree-roads wound in an endless labyrinth; but in these latitudes, I believed, they had been long deserted.

“We’re in no shape to meet an armed attack,” the Regent said. He looked uneasily at Regis and Derik, and I followed his thought — my barriers were all down now.

The whole power of the Comyn is here. One attack, now, could wipe us out. Why did I let them all come, unguarded? And then, a thought he could not conceal, Are these Altons leading us into a trap?

I gave him a bleak smile, T don’t blame you,” I said. “As it happens, I’m not. But if anyone were around who really knew how to handle the Sharra power — I don’t really — I’d be just a pawn. I might do just that.”

The Regent did not question me. He turned in his saddle. “Well turn back here.”

“What’s the matter?” Corus Ridenow sneered. “Have the Altons turned coward?”

By unlucky chance Marius was riding next him; he leaned over abruptly and his flat hand smacked across Corus’ face. The Ridenow reared back, and his hand swept down and flicked the knife loose from his boot—

And in that instant it happened!

Corus stopped dead, as if turned to stone, knife still raised. Then, horribly loud in the paralyzed silence, Marius screamed. I have never heard such agony from a human throat. The full strength of the Source flooded us both. God or demon, force, machine or elemental — it was Sharra, and it was hell, and hearing a second outraged shout of protest, I did not even realize that I, too, had cried out.

And in that moment wild yells rang around us, and on every side men dropped from the trees into the road. A hand seized my bridle — and I knew just who had led us into the trap.

The man in the road was tall and lean; a shock of pale hair stood awry over a weathered gaunt face and steel gray eyes that glared at mine; he looked older, more dangerous than I remembered him. Kadarin!

My horse reared, almost flinging me into the road. Around me yells coalesced into a brawling melee; the clash of iron, the stamping and neighing of panicked horses. Kadarin bellowed, in the gutteral jargon of the trailmen, “Away from the Altons! I want them!”

He was jerking my horse’s bridle this way and that maneuvering to keep the animal’s body between us. I swung to one side, almost lying along the horse’s back, and felt the crack of a bullet past my ear. I yelled “Coward!” and jerked at the reins, wheeling the horse abruptly. The impact knocked him sprawling. He was up again in a second, but in that second I was clear of the saddle and my sword was out — for what that was worth.

At one time I had been a fine swordsman, and Kadarin had never learned to handle one. Terrans never do. He carried one and he used it when he had to; it was the only way, in the mountains.

But I had learned to fight when I had two hands and I was wearing only a light dress-sword. Idiot that I was! I’d smelled danger, the air had been rotten with it — and I hadn’t even worn a serviceable weapon!

Marius was fighting at my back with one of the nonhuman Trailmen, a lean crouched thing in rags with a long evil knife. The pattern of his strokes beat through our linked minds, and I cut the contact roughly; I had enough trouble with one fight. My steel clashed against Kadarin’s.

He’d improved. In a matter of seconds he had me off balance, unable to attack, able only to keep up, somehow, a hard defense. Yet there was a kind of pleasure in it, even though my breath came short and blood dripped down my face with the sweat; he was here, -and this time there was no man — or woman — to pull us apart.

But a defensive fight is doomed to lose. My mind worked, fast and desperately. Kadarin had one weakness; his temper. He would go into a flaming rage, and for a few minutes, that keen judgment of his went, and he was a berserk animal. If I could make him lose his temper for half a second, his acquired skill at swordplay would go with it. It was a dirty way to fight. But I wasn’t in any shape to be fastidious.

“Son of the River!” I shouted at him in the Cahuenga dialect, which has nuances of filth unsurpassed in any other language. “Sandal-wearer! You can’t hide behind your little sister’s petticoats this time!”

There was no change in the fast, slashingly awkward — but deadly — sword strokes. I hadn’t really hoped there would be.

But for half a second he dropped the barriers around his mind.

And then he was my prisoner.

His mind gripped in the unique, Jocked-on paralysis of an Alton Telepath. And his body rigid — paralyzed. I reached out, taking his sword from the stiff fingers. I lost consciousness of the battle round us. We might have been alone on the forest road, Kadarin and I — and my hate. In a minute I would kill him.

But I waited a second too long. I was exhausted already from the struggle with Marius; a flicker of faltering pressure, and Kadarin, alert, leaped free with a savage cry. He outweighed me by half; the impact knocked me full-length to the ground, and the next minute something crashed and struck my head and I plunged miles into darkness.

A million years later, Old Hastur’s face swam out of nowhere into focus before my aching eyes. “Lie still, Lew. You’ve been shot. They’re gone.”

I struggled to raise myself; subsided to the hands that forced me gently back. Through a swollen eye I counted the faces that swung around me in the red, murky sunset. Very far away, I heard Lerrys’ voice, harsh and muted, mourning,) “Poor boy.”

I was bruised and in pain, but there was a worse ache, a great gaping emptiness torn loose, that made me deathly alone.

They didn’t have to tell me that Marius was dead.