The Sword of Aldones

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  "I imagine so, I'm not sure, but I'm not very wise in the accomplices I choose, am? That--" he pointed at the Sword of Aldones, "is a last resort. It will put Sharra out, permanently, but it's murder. Anyone who's ever been keyed into the Sharra matrix--"

  Lawton said, "I'll keep it for the time being."

  Kadarin laughed, a harsh animal sound. "Just try! Now that it's been crossed with Sharra's, even I--" he reached for the sword, then his hands contracted visibly, and he drew back with an audible gasp. Shaking his fingers, agonized, he glanced at Rafe and said, "You try."

  "Not if I know it!" Rafe backed away.

  Lawton was no coward. He reached over and took the hilt firmly. Then, in a shower of blue sparks, he went flying across the room. He crashed into the wall, fell, and picked himself up, dazed, rubbing his head. "Good lord!"

  "My turn." I reached for the Sword, which had fallen to the floor. I managed to lift it to the desk, but finally, trembling, had to let it fall. "I can touch it," I said, feeling the hot, unbearable tingling, "but I can't hang on to it."

  "No one man can," Regis said. "But I'll keep it for the moment." Easily, he picked it up and belted it at his waist. "I am Hastur," he said quietly.

  Then the Hastur Gift is the living matrix!

  Regis nodded. The matrix had found its support and focus, the monitoring balance, in the brain and nerves of the Hastur who bore it. No one else could handle that sword-- or even hold it without danger.

  Sharra was only a dreadful and lethal copy of this.

  "Yes;" Kadarin said quietly, "I guessed. That was why your hand never healed, Lew. The wound itself was not so bad, but you'd handled the matrix, and human flesh and blood won't take it. I never did, without at least one other telepath in rapport--"

  Suddenly, down the corridor, Thyra began to scream.

  Kadarin jumped out of his chair. I sat bolt upright. That something which had set Thyra to mad shrieking had jolted in me, too; black emptiness, loss, tearing--

  "Marja!" I almost sobbed the name.

  Kadarin whirled to face me; I have never seen such a look on a human face, before or since. "Quick! Where is she?”

  "What's the matter?" Lawton demanded.

  Kadarin moved his lips, but no sound came. Finally he said, "Dyan Ardais has the matrix--"

  I finished. "He doesn't dare use it alone. He saw me-- what happened to my hand. He'll need a telepath, and Marja's an Alton--"

  "Dirty, treacherous--" Kadarin's voice was thick with fear, but not for himself. My mind was open, and for a minute, seeing Kadarin, my hate receded. Regis turned, unbelted the Sword of Aldones, and put it into Kathie's hands. "Keep this," he said, "you're still immune. Don't be afraid; no Darkovan alive can take it from you, or harm you while you hold it." He turned to me, and without a word, knowing what he wanted, I gave him Rafe's pistol.

  "What are you--"

  Regis said tersely, cutting Lawton short, "This is a Comyn affair, and with the best will in the world, you could only hinder, not help. Rafe, come with me."

  Kadarin said harshly, "You fool, it's for Marja! Go with him!"

  They went. The rhythmic, hysterical shrieks never stopped. Kadarin stood still, as if- holding himself in check with his whole body; then suddenly broke free. "I'm going," he shouted at Lawton over his shoulder, and slammed out of the room. Lawton grabbed my arm.

  "No, you don't! Have sense, man! You can hardly stand on your feet!" He forced me into the chair again. "What set them off? Who or what is Marja?"

  The screaming stopped, abruptly, as if a switch had been flipped, leaving a silence that was somehow frightening. Lawton swore and stamped out of the room, leaving me lying in the chair, swearing with helpless rage, unable to rise. I heard shouts and voices ringing in the corridors, and wondered what had happened now, and then Dio stormed into the room.

  "And they left you here!" she raged. "What did that redheaded bitch do to you? And they've doped Callina--oh, Lew, Lew, your shirt's all blood--" She knelt by me, her face white as her dress. Lawton came stamping back and stood over me, his face furious.

  "Gone! That Thyra woman is gone-- out of a sheet-steel cell, with guards all over the place! When that happens, with a Comyn matrix mechanic in the building--" He caught sight of Dio and his scowl deepened"I know you, you're that sister of Lerrys. What are you doing here?"

  "At the moment," she blazed, "trying to see what's wrong with Lew--which nobody else is bothering about!"

  "I'm, all right," I muttered, angry at the solicitude which weakened me. But I let her take me down to the Medical Floor where a little fat man in a white coat grumbled about a damned uncivilized planet where he spent his time patching up knife wounds. He did me up in plastic shields which hurt like hell, burned me with ultra-light of some kind and made me swallow something red and sticky which burnt my mouth and made my head swim, but it took the pain away; and when the dizziness stopped, I could think clearly again.

  "Where's Callina Aillard?"

  "In there," Dr. Forth said. "Asleep. She was faint and sick, so I gave her a shot of hypnal and had a nurse put her to bed in the women's infirmary."

  "Any chance she could be in shock-trance?"

  He put the things he'd used under the light-machine. T wouldn't know. She saw you stabbed, didn't she? Some Women react that way."

  I damned the man for a fool. Darkovan women don't faint at a little blood. What was he doing here, if he couldn't diagnose matrix-shock? And if he had drugged Callina, there wasn't a chance I could bring her out of it. Not until all the drug wore off.

  "It might be best," Dio said quietly. "Before she wakes, I want to tell you all about Callina. Not now."

  Lawton, in his office, was setting the mechanism of search into action. Time crawled by; I waited. Once his puzzlement exploded into frustrated questions. "Damn it, I still haven't figured out how the Marshall girl got here from Samarra. And I'm still trying to get it all straight--the way you, and Rafe, and this Thyra woman, and Kadarin, are all brothers and sisters or cousins of whatever. And now this Thyra person vanishes into thin air! Did you witch her out of there someway?"

  "I did not." Thyra could lie in a cell forever, for all I cared.

  As the narcotic slowly wore off, I felt pain in my side again, but deeper down was that horrible sense of something torn away--I was afraid to know what it was.

  The bloody sun of Darkover had reached its height and begun to angle sharply downward when I heard dragging footsteps and Regis and Rafe and Kadarin came in.

  Regis had changed shockingly in a few hours. There was blood on his face, and blood on his sleeve, but it went deeper than his first serious fight. The last trace of the boy had burnt away and it was a man, and a Hastur, who looked at me in despair.

  "You're hurt!" Lawton exclaimed, with the horror of a Terran for personally inflicted wounds.

  "Not much. Cut my shirt up, mostly. I fought with Dyan." "Dead?" I asked. "No, damn it!"

  Lawton demanded "Kadarin! Where's that woman of yours?

  Kadarin's gaunt face contracted in fear. "Thyra? Isn't she here with you? Zandru's hells, how can I tell her--" He covered his face with his hands. Suddenly he came to me. All the rest of the people in the office might as well have been on another planet for all the regard he gave them, and he looked into my eyes with an intensity that burned years away; back to the days when we had been friends, not sworn foes.

  My voice came through dry lips.

  "Bob, what is it? What's happened?"

  His face twisted. "Dyan! Zandru send him scorpion whips! Naotalba twist his feet off in hell forever! He's taken her into Sharra--my little Marguerhia." His voice broke. The words burned at me like acid. Dyan, with the Sharra matrix. Marja, a child but an Alton--a telepath. And the blankness where she had been, the sense of something torn away.

  Then she was dead.

  Marjorie. Marius. Linnell.

  Now Marja.

  Lawton did not press us for details. He must have known we were all tou
ching our last reserves of strength. I found myself sitting and asking questions as if anything could 'matter now. "Andres?"

  "Dyan left him for dead, but he may pull through."

  It was savage comfort to know that Andres had defended her. like that. "Ashara?"

  Dio stood up, her mouth, pinched tight. I think we had all forgotten she was there. "Regis! Keep them! I am going to the Tower!"

  I cried, "What for?" but she was already gone.

  Lawton said grimly, "The first thing is to have Dyan picked up. If he has the little girl-"

  Kadarin broke in. "You can't! There's no way to take the Sharra matrix away from him now. I've had the thing in my own hands often enough to know! Dyan could get it away from Marius only because he didn't know how to guard him-self. No man living--" Kadarin started upright. "Lawton! all of you! Bear witness! His life is mine, when, how and as I can kill him, fair fight or unfair, his life is--"

  "Mine!" I cut through his words. "Marja was mine! And whoever kills him, owes me a life--"

  "You pair of maniacs!" Lawton said, "let's catch him first, before you start fighting for the privilege of killing him!"

  With a gesture that was animal in its ferocity, Kadarin said, "If he frees Sharra, don't trust me! I'm the masterseal, and I'll be right in it!"

  Regis turned to me. "Well, Lew, it will have to be you. You've touched Sharra, but you're sealed to the Comyn too. If we could hold you in rapport from here, you could go into the Sharra matrix--"

  I cracked, then. "No!" I shouted. "No!" They could all die before they'd force me into that; why should I care now if Sharra ravaged Darkover? What had I left to lose? I grabbed the pistol out of Rafe's belt, and snapped off the safety. "I'll blow out my own brains first!"

  Regis' hand caught mine in a bone-crushing grip. We struggled briefly, crazily, but he had two hands; the recoil of the gun knocked me back and the bullet fired harmlessly through the window, in a burst of shattering glass. Regis shook my cramped fingers from the butt.

  "You're insane!" he said. He tossed the pistol to Rafe. "Here. This was yours originally, wasn't it? Take it. It's been around a lot lately. One lunatic is enough!"

  Lawton swore, kicking at the glass on the floor. "I ought to throw you all in the clink. Rafe, go get somebody to clean this mess up, and take Alton downstairs. He's off his head again."

  I dragged to my feet, but I had to hold the chair. "I'm a prisoner?"

  "Hell, no! But you walk out of here now, you'll pass out on the sidewalk! Man, use your head! Go on down to the infirmary! We'll let you know when we need you!"

  Quite suddenly the rage dissolved, leaving me empty and numb. Kadarin unfolded his long legs and came to me. "Truce, Lew," he said quietly. "Marja was mine, too. We can't do much now. You're worn out. Maybe later we can figure out some way to get me out of that hellish thing before Dyan burns us all to hell-and-gone." His eyes met mine; there was no hate left in them. Mine, too, had burnt away. I stumbled and let myself lean wearily on his arm. "Truce," I said.

  So it was Kadarin who took me down to Medical and into the hospital wing. I sat down on the cot in the cubicle, my emotions burned out but my nerves jumping and my telepathic barriers nonexistent. I bent wearily to pull off my boots.

  "Need any help?"

  I asked him, straight, "You think Dyan will let Sharra loose?"

  "I'm damn sure he'll try."

  It felt unreal. For six years my main compulsion had been to kill Kadarin, I had pictured it to myself a thousand times, and here we were, talking, quietly and rationally and from the same side. It felt unpleasant, but somehow sensible. I supposed it was the Terran way of doing things.

  "Want me to get you something from the Medic?"

  "No." I added, grudgingly, "No, thanks."

  Then I looked up, squarely at him. I knew he would never stoop to lie about it. "Bob, was it by your order that Marjorie was--forced into the Sharra fire, that last time? Was it your way of revenging yourself on me? When you knew--" I swallowed, "that it would kill her?"

  "Why would I kill her--to revenge myself on you?" He flung the question at me with a passionate sincerity I could not doubt; the same agonized question, that had been tormenting me for six years.

  "Lew, I knew Sharra as no living man has ever known. There was no danger, not for either of the girls, while I was in control. You know I loved Thyra, yet I managed to keep her safe." His face was bitter, agonized. "There aren't ten men alive who can determine the limits of safety for a woman they've had, but I did it for Thyra! Marjorie--"

  His dark face was ravaged by such misery that I almost pitied him; his barriers were down too, and the violence of his grief was like a burning in me. He would never be free of that grief, that guilt. "Marjorie-- Margie was just a child, I thought. She never told me! I swear I never knew you had been her lover 1 I swear it!"

  I rolled over and buried my face, unable to endure it, but Kadarin went on his voice heavy with pain. "So she went into it--and you know what happened. Any woman would have died coming from the arms of a lover to the pole of such power, and I've hated you for that--"

  His voice suddenly softened into deep compassion. "But it never occurred to me that you couldn't know. Hell, you were just a kid yourself. A pair of babies, you and Marjorie, and I never even warned you. Zandru's hells, Lew, talk about revenge, you had yours--!"

  Abruptly he was calm; dead calm. He said without inflection, "I claimed your life once. I give it back to you."

  I looked up at him, equally numbed. He had claimed my life; a solemn obligation, irrevocable in Darkovan law, while we both lived. Had another killed me, he would have been legally obligated to track down and kill my murderer. But Darkovan law was collapsing around us. We stood in the smashing rubble. I did not know my own voice when I said, "I'll take it from you."

  Gravely, unsmiling, we shook hands.

  "Tell me this," I said wearily. "Why was Thyra's child mine?"

  There was irony in his gaunt face. "I thought you'd have that all figured out. I hoped for a telepath son, with the

  Alton Gift."

  Damned, insolent-He said evenly, "Thyra never forgave me. I was so pleased with Marja that she was jealous, she refused to have the child where I could see her--" Suddenly his face twisted again. "It will kill Thyra! I swore Marja should not be used as a pawn, and I couldn't even keep her safe. Thyra has pretended so long to hate the child. Gods! Great Gods! Everything I love, everyone I love, I hurt or kill!" I flinched with the anguish of his despair. Abruptly he turned and went out, slamming the door so violently that the walls trembled.

  * * *

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I MUST HAVE SLEPT.

  I opened my eyes at last in the bare infirmary cubicle to see Callina kneeling beside me. Her soft eyes were filled with tears; she seized my hand, but did not speak. I wanted to catch her in my arms and crush her to me; but Kadarin's words still held me, compelled with horror. For her very life, I dared not touch her.

  But it would be harder than ever; I sensed, without knowing how, that some inner reserve in Callina was gone. There was no longer that chill, that conscious and wary aloofness.

  "We've gone through it all for nothing, Callina," I said. "Marius and Linnell are gone, we've let the Comyn have our lives to play with, and what have we got?"

  "There may still be something to save. Darkover--"

  "The hell with Darkover! Let the Terrans have it and welcome!"

  Callina passed her hand briefly across my eyes. I saw, in a blur, the horrifying face I had seen once before. It vanished; I saw Dyan, and Kadarin.

  "The Sword of Aldones will cancel out Sharra," she said. "Kadarin was helping them to make plans, when he--vanished. He just wasn't there! Like Thyra."

  That meant Sharra was free. I looked helplessly at the girl. "I've tried," I told her, "but I can't even touch the Sword of Aldones. Regis can, but he can't use it alone. No one man can."

  Her fingers closed blindly on my good hand. "Ashara said yo
u could use me for a focus--"

  I shook my head. I couldn't hurt Callina that way. I would literally have to tear our two minds to pieces and rebuild them into one. I'd been through it myself, I could take it. But Callina!

  Her voice was soft and resolute. "It's--well, it's you. And I want to."

  Her bravery shamed me. Whatever happened, no woman should outdo me in courage. Suddenly, tenderly, I gave her arm a little shake. "All right, girl," I said, "well try it. But think about it. I want you to be sure."

  "I'm sure now," she said.

  It was strange to see her there; lovely Callina, all the beauty and mystery of the comynari, star-like and remote, there in that bare white cubicle. The note of grotesquerie in these surroundings, the tumbled cot where I had slept, made it all seem more, not less strange.

  She laughed, nervously; her hand in mine felt cold and fragile. Physical contact can lay the mind bare. I would have liked to hold her in my arms for this, but I did not dare. I had learned with Dio how such contact can break down barriers, but I forced the thought back. I felt curiously shy; I did not want to touch Callina's mind with another woman in the forefront of my thoughts.

  I reached for contact.

  For a moment there was a frighteningly familiar resistance; like Dio, every defense of her mind went up to bar me away. This time I made it a rough shock-wave; her hand tore loose from mine and she slumped down, her arms over her head as if by this desperate hiding she could arrest the soul-stripping contact. She did not resist actively, but her passive, trembling terror was worse. It was worse than anything I had ever had to do.

  A tense moment of shock, and then Callina, white and shaking, snapped the rapport, sobbing wildly. I let it break, and drew her into my arms, and gradually the weeping quieted. "I--I tried so hard--"

  "I know." She had made every effort to endure the unbearable. Perhaps no woman can endure that absolute rapport with a man. If I had kept on, forced the resistance--it hadn't killed Marius, and 'Callina was Keeper, a comynara-- but I simply was not capable of torturing a woman like that. It was worse than rape.

  There was an alternative. It was drastic, but I was desperate. "Could you make the rapport?" I asked her. I said it easily, but inside, I was shaking. It put me wholly at her mercy; although a Keeper, she was not trained in handling that particular kind of focus.