The Sword of Aldones

CHAPTER SIX

At the height of Comyn power, centuries ago, the Crystal Chamber must have seemed small for all those who could claim blood-right in the hierarchy. An even blue light spilled diffused radiance over the glass walls; green, scarlet, golden flashes struck through. At noon it was like dwelling in a rainbow’s heart; at night it seemed to hang high and alone, buffeted on the winds of space.

Here I had first been presented to the Comyn, a boy of five, too big-boned and dark for a true Comyn child; young as I had been, I remembered the debates, and old Duvic Elhalyn shouting, “Kennard Alton, you waste our time and insult this holy place bringing your half-caste bastard into Council!”

And I could see in memory my father turning savagely to lift me high above them, in full sight of the Comyn. “Look at the boy, and eat those words!” And the old Lord had eaten them. No one ever defied my father twice. Much good his raging had done. Half-caste I was, bastard I remained, alien I was and would be; as much as that small boy who had sat for hours, fidgeting through the long ceremonials he did not understand, arm aching from the touch of the matrix that had set its pattern in the flesh to seal his Comyn. I glanced impassively at my wrist. I still had the mark. About three inches above where they had had to take off my hand.

“What are you brooding about?” Derik demanded.

“Sorry. Did you ask me something? I was thinking about my first council. There were more of us then.”

Derik laughed. “Then it’s high time you began raising sons to follow you, laggard!”

The thought was not unpleasant. My own estates, fertile green valleys in the uplands around Daillon, were waiting for me. I glanced at Callina; she sat beside Linnell, the two snuggled together in a great chair that would have held half a dozen girls their size. Derik went over to them and stood talking to Linnell. She looked happy, and the prince’s shallow handsome face seemed lighted from within. Not really stupid, Derik; only dull.

Not good enough for Linnell. But she loved him.

Dio Ridenow caught my eyes, then lowered her own with a resentful flush. Dyan Ardais came through the prism door, and I frowned suspiciously. Dyan, and Dyan alone, had known I had the Sharra matrix. Marius, while I was away, had been nothing more than a lonely boy, despised by the Comyn for his alien blood, powerless. I, alone, was powerless and maimed. But together we formed a powerful threat to his ambition.

Kadarin’s attempt on my life was a personal feud, and he had fairly filed his intentions. The trailmen would always steal. But would they risk killing an Alton, even by accident? Reprisals for such things were swift and terrible — or had been when the Comyn was worthy of the name. With swift decision, I reached out and made contact with Dyan’s mind. He scowled and raised his head, locking barriers against me; and I did not take up the challenge. Not yet.

Hastur was calling us to order. This was a formality, of course; a gesture toward appeasing those who had been absent or ill. Ostensibly, since this closing ceremony of Comyn could not be held unless everyone who held laran rights in the Comyn were present, no member could complain that he had no chance to be heard. In theory I could keep them there as long as I chose — I, or any dissatisfied member — simply by refusing my assent to close the session. But in fact, any triviality, and small time-consuming matter, would be brought up and argued at length; anything to keep me from getting a chance to speak. Until time, or weariness, brought the session to an end and silenced me on those issues forever. Once the council was closed, I was bound by Comyn law and many oaths to contest the issues no further. I’d seen the blocking technique used before.

The triviality was not long in coming. Lerrys Ridenow arose and glared belligerently around the room, and Hastur Stretched his baton to Lerrys, ignoring roe.

“Comyn, I have a personal complaint—”

I saw Dio’s hands knot into small fists. Would Lerrys really drag that affair out in Comyn council, or demand satisfaction from me at this late date and on another planet? But Lerrys did not look at me, but at Derik.

“My lords, in these days when the Comyn and the other powers of Darkover drift apart, our young ruler should take a consort outside of council, and bring in some strong alliance. Linnell Aillard, too, could give marriage-right to some strong and loyal man.”

I stared. Dio and I had escaped public censure — but this was almost as bad. Linnell was white with shock, and Callina broke in angrily, rising to her feet, “Linnell is my ward! This is no matter for council meddling!”

Dyan caught up the phrase maliciously. “Meddling? Does a Comyn Keeper question the will of the council?”

“Not where I am concerned,” Callina retorted, standing straight and defiant. “But for Linnell, yes!”

I knew this was only a point of delay, but I could not look at Linnell’s small stricken face and keep silent. “Idiots!” I said harshly. “Yes, you too, Lord Regent! You very cleverly rushed the council through while I was out of my head—”

“From his utter disregard of council manners,” drawled Lerrys in languid rebuke, “Lew Alton is still out of his head.”

“Then more of you should have your wits addled like that,” I retorted, turning on him. “This council is a farce, and now it is turning into a brawl! Here we sit like gaffers in the market square, haggling over marriages! Can a burst dam be mended with toothpicks?”

They were all listening to me, but I stopped, a familiar fist squeezing my throat. What was this?

Callina’s face seemed to waver in the rainbow shimmer or was it my eyes? But she caught up my words;

“Oh, we are so safe, my lords, we have so much time for this nonsense! While the Terrans lure the people away, and make a reeking, filthy Trade City out of our Thendara, we sit wrangling among ourselves, letting our young lords and ladies enjoy themselves on other planets—” her glance rested coldly on Dio Ridenow — “while we sit in the Crystal Chamber making marriages. And Sharra’s matrix in Kadarin’s hands! You had a demonstration, the other day, of our Comyn powers and what did you do? You let Marius Alton be killed, and Lew hurt. Those two you should have guarded above all the others! Which of you can answer for the life of Marius? Which of you would dare take his place?”

Before anyone could answer, I jumped in again.

“The Terrans have left us a little power to rule, and we play with our corner of the planet like little children squabbling over their playgrounds! The people used to hate the Terrans! Now they hate us instead! A leader could jump up from anywhere, or nowhere, and strike fire to all this tinder! While I was on Earth, I heard someone call Darkover the weak link in the Terran Empire. We could be the link to snap the chain of conquest! Are we doing it?”

Abruptly I stopped, out of breath, aware, first, that Callina and I were in telepathic contact — in’ spite of the dampers — and, second, that even this faint surface contact was exhausting me completely. I sent a desperate command; Break it! Get out! What was the girl doing? I couldn’t hold that kind of rapport under a damper! She clung, uncomprehending, and I lashed out with a quick telepathic surge, to knock her out of rapport. I was already so limp I could hardly stand up. I caught at the edge of the railing and let myself slide back into my seat, but I could not loose the merciless grip on my mind. Was it Callina?

The room was very quiet. I saw Dio’s face taut and pale. Lerrys choked, “What’s wrong with the dampers?”

Hastur stood up, leaning over the long table, and started to speak, then looked up. His mouth dropped open.

Callina froze, motionless.

The floor dipped under my feet and would not stay still.

And above us there was a little shimmering, a distortion of the air.

Dio screamed.

“The — the death sign,” someone faltered, and voices died in deadly stillness.

I stared at the sign that flared like letters of living fire in the air, and I felt my blood freeze and the strength running out of me like water. Twisted space writhed and flared, and the inside me was howling and gibbering, reduced to primal panic. From time out of mind, before Darkover’s sun faded to a dying ember, that sign meant doom and death, bodies and minds seared to ruin.

“Sorceress! She-devil!” It was Dyan’s voice exploding in curses; he took three quick strides toward Callina, caught her by the shoulders, and wrenched her away from her place before the High Seat; flung her, with all the strength in his lean body, out into the room.

And young Regis, through some uncanny sensing, leaped up and caught Callina’s reeling body as she fell. The sight broke the static horror that held me; I whirled to face Dyan. At last I had reason! The man who dared to touch a Keeper had forfeited immunity. Annihilating fury swept from me, taking Dyan unaware. The Alton Gift, even unfocused, can be a vicious thing. His mind lay, in seconds, stripped before mine. I rained vicious mental slaps on it. It was immensely satisfying. I had been holding this in check ever since he picked my mind on the skyliner. He writhed, crumpled and fell, gasping in loud desperate hoarse half-sobs.

The pattern of fire flamed and died and was gone. Space in the room was quiet, normal again.

Callina stood leaning on Regis, pallid and shaken. I still stood over Dyan; his defenses were slashed away, and it would have been easy to snap the thread of his life. But Derik threw himself forward, flinging restraining arms around me.

“What are you about, you madman?”

There is something in a touch which can lay the mind bare. And what I touched then, shook my world. Derik was a weakling; I had always known that; but this — this tumbling, impassible confusion? I drew away, unable to endure even a second of it, letting my savage attack on Dyan relax.

“Hastur’s voice, harsh, and sombre, commanded, “In the name of Aldones! Let us have peace here, at least!”

Dyan stumbled to his feet and backed away. I could not move, though I had no will left to defy Hastur. The Regent looked gravely at Callina.

“A serious occasion, Callina comynara.”

“Serious truly. But only for me?” She freed herself from Regis’ protecting arm. “Oh, I see. You blame me for the — the manifestation?”

“Who else?” Dio cried shrilly. “So innocent, so innocent she looks, but she and Ashara — she and Ashara—”

Callina turned terrible eyes on her.

“Can all your life be told in open council then, Dio Ride-now comynara? You sought Ashara once.”

Dio’s eyes sought mine. Then, with the quick desperate move of one deserted, she threw herself into the arms of her brother Lerrys and burrowed her bright head in his shoulder.

Callina faced them all with aloof dignity. “I need not defend myself from your silly panic, Dio,” she said. “But you, Dyan Ardais, I ask no courtesies of you, but you touch me again at your life’s risk. Let everyone hear, and let him beware of a finger’s weight laid on me; I am Keeper. And no man lives to maul me three times.”

She turned toward the door. And until the curtains had folded down softly behind her, there was silence.

Then Dyan laughed, low and ugly. “In six years you have not changed, Lew Alton. Still you have a passion for witches. You stand here defending our sorceress, even as you once threw away all your Comyn honor for that mountain hellion of Kadarin’s, trying to lure a Comyn lord to her bed—”

But that was all he got to say. “Zandru’s hells!” I shouted, “she was my wife and you keep your filthy tongue from her name!” I smashed my flat hand, hard, across that sneering mouth. He yelped and staggered back, then his hand swept like lightning into his shirt—

And Regis was on him like lightning, seizing the small deadly thing he raised to his lips. The boy flung it to the floor in disgust. “A poison-pipe — in the Crystal Chamber! And you spoke of honor, Dyan Ardais?”

The two Hasturs held Dyan back between them. One of the Ridenow brothers had a restraining hand on my arm, but he didn’t need it.

I’d had all I could stand.

I turned my back on them all and left.

I’d have strangled if I’d stayed there another minute.

Not knowing or caring where my steps led, I went up and up toward the height of the Comyn Castle. I found bitter relief in climbing flight after flight of stairs; head bent and aching, but a need for physical action driving me on.

Why the hell hadn’t I stayed on Terra?

That damnable sign! Half the Comyn would take it for a supernatural apparition, a warning of danger. It meant danger, all right, but there was nothing supernatural about it. It was pure mechanics, and it scared me more than any ghostly visitation.

It was a trap-matrix; one of the old, illegal ones, which worked directly on the mind and emotions, rousing racial memories, atavistic fears — all the horrors of the freed subconscious of the individual and the race, throwing man back to the primal, reasonless beast.

Who would build a pattern like that?

I could have, but I hadn’t. Callina? No Keeper alive would blaspheme her office that way. Lerrys? He might think it a perverted joke, but I didn’t think he had the training. Dyan? No, it had scared him. Dio, Regis, Derik? Now we were getting silly; I’d be accusing Old Hastur, or my little Linnell, next!

Dyan, now. I couldn’t even have the relief of killing him in fair fight.

Even with one hand, I wasn’t afraid to fight him. Not a man Dyan’s age. I don’t read my antagonist’s mind, like a telepath in a bad scare-story, to figure out his sword strokes. That sort of stuff takes intent, motionless concentration, Nobody — not the legendary Son of Aldones — could fight a duel that way.

But now I could fight him before a hundred witnesses, and they’d still cry murder. After today and what they’d seen me do to Kadarin. I couldn’t do that to anyone else, Kadarin and I had once been in rapport through Sharra, and we had — however little we liked it — a foothold in each other’s minds.

But Dyan didn’t know that.

Dyan didn’t know this either, but he’d had his revenge already.

Six years of knocking around the Empire had cured me, as far as cure was possible. I am not, now, the shattered youngster who had fled Darkover years ago. I am not the young idealist who found, in Kadarin, a hope of reconciling his two warring selves, or saw in a girl with amber eyes everything he wanted in this world or the next.

Or I thought I wasn’t. But the first knock on my shell had cracked it wide open. What now?

I was standing on a high balcony, jutting out over the walls of the Comyn Castle. Below, the land lay spread like a map, daubed in burnt sienna and red and dusty gold and ochre. Around me rose the iridescent castle walls, which gave back the dropping light of the red sun, setting in blood and fire. The bloody sun. That is what the Terrans call the sun of Darkover. A just name — for them, and for us.

And far above me soared the high spire of the Keeper’s Tower, arrogantly aloof from castle or city. I looked up at it, apprehensively. I did not think that Ashara, ancient though she must be, would remain aloof from a holocaust in the Comyn.

Someone spoke my name and I turned, seeing Regis Hastur in the archway.

“I’ve got a message for you,” he said. “I’m not going to give it, though.”

I smiled grimly. “Don’t, then. What is it?”

“My grandfather sent me to call you back. As a matter of fact, I wanted an excuse to get out myself.”

“I suppose I ought to thank you for pulling that blow-pipe away from Dyan. Right now, I’m inclined to think you’d have saved us all trouble if you’d let him use it.”

“Are you going to fight him?”

“How can I? You know what they say about the Altons.”

The youngster joined me at the railing. “Want me to fight him as your proxy? That’s legal, too.”

I tried to hide how much the offer had touched me. “Thanks. But you’d better keep out of this business.”

“It’s too late for that. I’m in it already. Waist-deep.”

I asked, on impulse, “Did you know Marius well?”

“I wish, now, that I could say yes.” His face held a queer sort of shame. “Unfortunately — no, I never did.”

“Did anybody?”

“I don’t think so. Although he and Lerrys were friends, in a way.” Regis traced an idle pattern in the dust, with his bootheel. After a minute he rubbed his toe over it and said, “I spent a few days in the Ridenow forst before coming to council, and—” he paused. “This is difficult — I heard it by chance, and the only honorable thing I could do, was to pledge not to repeat it. But the boy is dead now, and I think you have a right to know.”

I said nothing. I had no right to insist that a Hastur violate his word. I waited for him to decide. At last he said, “It was Lerrys who suggested the alliance with Aldaran, and Marius himself went to Castle Aldaran as ambassador. Do you think Beltran would have had the insolence to offer marriage to a Keeper, unsolicited?”

I should have realized that. Someone must have told Belt-ran that such an offer would meet with serious consideration. But was Regis breaking his pledge, just to tell me my brother had been pawn-hand in a mildly treasonable intrigue?

“Can’t you see?” Regis demanded. “Why Callina? Why a

Keeper? Why not Dio, or Linnell, or my sister Javanne, or any of the other comynara? Beltran wouldn’t care. In fact, he’d probably have an ordinary girl, provided she could give him laran rights in council. No. Listen, you know the law — that a Keeper must remain a virgin, or she loses her power to work in the screens?”

“That’s nonsense,” I said.

“Nonsense or not, they believe it. The point is, this marriage launches two ships on one track. Beltran allied to them, and Callina out of the council’s way by good, fair, safe, legal means.”

“It begins to fit together,” I said. “Dyan and all.” There was, after all, something Dyan wanted less than a capable, adult male Alton in council; a Comyn Keeper might be, even more of a threat to him. “But that marriage will take place only over my dead body.”

He knew immediately what I meant. “Then marry her yourself, now, Lew! Do it illegally, if you have to, in the Terran Zone.”

I grinned ironically and held out my mutilated arm. I could not marry, by Darkovan law, while Kadarin lived. An unsettled blood-feud takes precedence over every other human obligation. But by Terran law we could marry.

I shook my head, heavily. “She’d never consent.”

“If only Marius had lived!” Regis said, and I was moved by the sincerity of his words; the first honest regret I had heard from anyone, though they had all expressed formal condolences. I liked it better that he did not pretend to any personal sorrow, but simply said, “The Comyn needed him so. Lew, could you use any other telepath — me, for instance — for a focus like that?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t think so. I’d rather not try. You’re a Hastur, and it probably wouldn’t kill you, but it wouldn’t be fun.” My voice suddenly turned hard. “Now tell me what you really came here to tell me!”

“The death sign,” he blurted, then his face crumpled in panic. “I didn’t mean that, I didn’t—”

I could have had his confidence if I had waited. Instead I did something that still shames me. I caught one of his wrists with my good hand, and with a quick twist, a trick hold I’d learned on Vialles, forced him against the railing. He started to leap at me, then I caught his thought.

I can’t fight a man who has only one hand.

That hardened my rage; and in that instant of black wrath I lashed out and forced rapport on him; I drew into his mind roughly, with a casual swift searching that took what it wanted, then withdrew.

Stark white, shaking, Regis slumped against the railing; and I, the taste of triumph bitter on my tongue, turned my back on him. To justify my own self-contempt, I made my voice hard. “So you built the sign! You — a Hastur!”

Regis swung around, shaking with wrath. “I’d smash your face for that, if you weren’t — why the hell did you do that?”

I said harshly, “I found out what I wanted to know.”

He muttered, “You did.”

Then, his eyes blazing but his voice unsteady, he said, “That’s what scared me. That’s why I came to you. You’re an Alton, I thought you’d know. At the council, something hit me. I — I don’t know anything about matrix mechanics, surely you must know that now? I don’t know how I did it, or why. I just bridged the gap and threw the sign. I thought I could tell you — ask you—” His voice broke, on the ragged edge of hysteria; I heard him swear, chokingly, like a child trying not to cry. He was shaking all over.

At last he said, “All right. I’m still scared. And I could kill you for what you did. But there’s no one else to ask for help.” He swallowed. “What you did, you did openly. I can stand that. What I can’t stand is not knowing what I might do next.”

Shamed and unnerved, I walked away from him. Regis, who had tried to befriend me, had received the same treatment I’d given my worst enemy. I couldn’t face him.

After a minute he followed me. “Lew. I said, we’ll have to forget it. We can’t afford to fight. Did it occur to you?

We’re both in the same fix, we’re both doing things we’d never do in our right mind,”

He knew, and I knew, it wasn’t the same; but it made me able to look round and face him.

“Why did I do it, Lew? How, why?”

“Steady,” I said. “Don’t lose your head. We’re all scared. I’m scared, too. But there must be a reason.” I paused, trying to muster my memory of the Comyn Gifts. They are mostly recessive now, bred out by intermarriage with outsiders, but Regis was physically atavistic, a throwback to the pure Comyn type; he might also be a mental throwback. “The Hastur Gift, whatever that is, is latent in you,” I said. “Perhaps, unconsciously, you knew the council should be broken up, and took that drastic way of doing it. I added, diffidently, “If what had happened — hadn’t happened, I’d offer to go into your mind and sift it. But — well, I don’t think you’d trust me now.

“Probably not. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” I said roughly. “I don’t even trust myself, after that. But Ashara or Callina, for that matter, either of the Keepers, could deep-probe and find out for you.”

“Ashara—” He looked up thoughtfully toward the Keeper’s Tower. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

We leaned across the railing, looking down into the valley, dulled now and darkened by the falling night. A baritone thunder suddenly shook the castle, and a silver dart sped bullet-wise across the sky, trailing a comet’s tail of crimson, and was lost.

“Mail-rocket,” I said, “from the Terran Zone.”

“Terra and Darkover,” said a voice behind us, “the irresistible force, and the immovable object.”

Old Hastur came out on the balcony. “I know, I know,” he said, “you young Altons don’t like being ordered around here and there. Frankly, I don’t enjoy doing it; I’m too old.” He smiled at Regis. “I sent you out to keep you from jumping into the mess along with Lew. But I wish you’d managed to keep your temper, Lew Alton!”

“My temper!” The unfairness of that left me speechless. “I know. You had provocation. But if you had controlled your righteous wrath—” he spoke the words with a flavor of sour irony — “Dyan would have been clearly in the wrong. As it is — well, you broke Comyn immunity — first, and that’s serious. Dyan swears he’ll write a writ of exile on you.”

I said, almost indulgently, “He can’t. The law requires at least one laran heir from every Domain — or why did you go to such trouble to have me recalled? I am the last living Alton, and childless. Even Dyan can’t break up the Comyn that way.”

Hastur scowled. “So you think you can break all our laws — being irreplaceable? Think again, Lew. Dyan swears he’s found a child of yours.”

“Mine? It’s a stinking, sneaking lie,” I said angrily. “I’ve lived off-world for six years. And I’m a matrix mech. You know what that means. And it’s common knowledge I’ve lived celibate.” Mentally I absolved myself for the single exception. If Dio had borne my child, after that summer on Vainwal, I would have known. Known? I’d have been murdered for it!

The Regent looked at me skeptically. “Yes, yes, I know. But before that? You weren’t too young to be physically capable of fathering a child, were you? The child is an Alton, Lew.”

Regis said slowly, “Your father wasn’t exactly a recluse. And I suppose — how old was Marius? He might have fathered a chance-child somewhere.”

I thought it over. It seemed unlikely that I should have a son. Not impossible, certainly, remembering certain adventures of my early manhood, but improbable. On the other hand, no Darkovan woman would dare swear me, or my dead kinsmen, father to her child unless she were sure past all human doubts. It takes more courage than most women have, to lie about a telepath.

“And suppose I call Dyan’s bluff? To produce this alleged child, prove his paternity, set him up where I am now, write his writ of exile and be damned\to him? I never wanted to come back anyhow. Suppose I say go right ahead?”

“Then,” said Hastur, gravely, “we’d be right back where we started.” He laid his lined old hand on my arm. “Lew, I fought to have you recalled, because your father was my friend and because we Hasturs were pretty desperately outnumbered in council. I thought the Comyn needed you. Downstairs just now, when you were raking them out for their squabbles — like children in a playground, you said — I had high hopes. Don’t make a fool of me by breaking the peace at every turn!”

I bent my head, feeling grieved and unhappy. “I’ll try,” I said at last, bleakly, “but by the sword of Aldones, I wish you’d left me out in space.”