The contempt in his voice was scathing.
“They let us alone, when they ought to be honoring us as the first and most prestigious of their colonies!”
“That kind of honor—” it was a whiplash from Dyan— “we can well do without!”
Lerrys turned on him. He said, “What in hell do you know about the Terrans? Have you ever gone far enough to take a walk inside the Terran Zone and go through one of their buildings? Have you ever done anything in the Terran Zone except visit one of their exotic whorehouses? With all due respect—which isn’t much, Lord Dyan—you ought to shut your mouth until you know what you’re talking about!”
“I know you are trying to make us all Terrans—” said Dyan, and Lerrys said, “Make us Terrans? Hell! We areTerrans, or has that significant fact been kept from you by your crazy father, and all our forefathers? If there’s anyone here who doesn’t know that we were a Terran colony once, it’s time that sheltered idiot learned the truth!”
Danvan of Hastur said repressively, “This matter has been discussed before, by your elders, Dom Lerrys. We are all in agreement that we want no part of Terra—”
“You are all in agreement,” mocked Lerrys. “How many of you are in agreement—all fifteen or sixteen of you? What’s the population of Thendara, at the last census, or have we been too backward to number our people? What do you think they would say, if you asked them whether they wanted to go on worshipping you aristocrats as the Hastur-kin, the children of Gods, and all that balderdash? Or whether they preferred to be free citizens of the Empire, with a voice in their own government, and no need to bow down to you lofty Comyn? Just ask them sometime!”
Edric Ridenow, Lord Serrais, rose ponderously from his seat. He said, “We have ruled these lands from time out of mind and we know what our people want. Get back to your place, Lerrys; I did not give you leave to speak!”
“No, you didn’t,” retorted Lerrys at white heat, “and I spoke anyway. It needs saying! I am a citizen of the Empire, I want some real voice in what’s happening!”
“Do you really believe that will give you such a voice?” inquired Lord Hastur. Regis thought he sounded genuinely curious. “You have accused Lord Dyan of speaking without real knowledge of the Terrans. Can you accuse me of the same? I have dealt with the Terrans during most of my long life, Lerrys, and I can assure you, they have nothing worth wanting. But I cannot sit here and let you speak out of turn in Council. I beg you, sit until your brother and lord gives you leave to speak.”
“Who in all of Zandru’s hells gave him godship over my voice?” demanded Lerrys in a rage. “I am Comyn, though you may not want to admit it, and I have a right to be heard—”
“Gabriel,” said Hastur quietly, “your duty.”
Regis said, “Let him speak, Grandfather. I want to hear what he has to say.” But he was shouted down, and Gabriel, drawn sword of the honor-guard in hand, strode to Lerrys and said quietly, “Sit, dom Lerrys. Silence.”
Lerrys said, “Like hell—”
“You leave me no choice, sir. Forgive me,” Gabriel gestured to the Guardsmen, who collared Lerrys roughly; he elbowed and shoved, but he was lightly built and the Guards were two huge hefty men, and they had no trouble at all in restraining him. They frog-marched him toward his seat. Abruptly, with a swift kick or two well-placed, he managed to free himself, and stood defiant.
“Never mind. I’m not going to upset your precious fool’s Council any more,” he said. “You’re not worth it. Now have me assassinated as you did with Marius Alton, because I’m on the wrong side of the political fence! Damned fools, all of you, and murderers, because you’re afraid to listen to the facts! You’re a damned bloody anachronism, all of you, sitting there playing at lords and ladies with a star-spanning Empire at your feet! All right, damn it, go to hell in your own way, and I’ll stand there and watch while you do it!” He laughed, loud and mocking, swirled with a great flying toss of his cape and his long light hair, and turned his back, striding out of the Council Chamber.
Regis sat there, aghast. Lerrys had voiced the thoughts he had never dared, before, to voice—and he had sat there, like a lump, not daring to speak aloud, not challenging Gabriel. Damn it, I should have stepped down there beside him and demanded some of those answers! I am Heir to Hastur, they could not have silenced me so easily!
He told himself that he had had no choice; that Lerrys had been excluded because of his disregard of Council custom and courtesies, not because of what he was saying.
He all but accused them of murder, and no one spoke to deny it, Regis thought, with a sudden shiver. Was it only because they felt it too ridiculous to answer? He did not like to think about the alternative.
One of the lesser nobles, a Di Asturien from the shores of Lake Mirien—Regis knew him slightly; he had had a brief affair with one of the man’s daughters—rose and gestured to Lord Hastur for recognition. Hastur nodded, and the man came down to the speaker’s place.
“My lords,” he said, “I do not question your wisdom, but I feel it needs explaining. In these days, when we in Council are so few, why should Prince Derik be married inside of Comyn? Their children will be divided between the two Domains involved; would it not be better for Prince Derik to marry outside the Council, and thus bring in a strong alliance? Linnell Lindir-Aillard, too, should be married to some man who will bring new blood into Council. I also wish to point out that the two of them are very closely akin. With all respect, sir, I point out that the inner circle of Comyn has already been thinned overmuch by inbreeding. I’m not asking that we go back to the old days of keeping stud-books on laran, my lord, but any horse-breeder can tell you that too much inbreeding brings out bad things in the blood lines.”
Yes, it does, Regis thought, looking at Callina, who looked so frail it seemed a puff of air would waft her off her feet; at Derik’s shallow foolish face. Javanne had been lucky, being married outside direct Comyn lines. Her sons were all healthy and strong. Derik—looking at the young prince, Regis wondered if Derik would father anything but a string of halfwits like himself. And suddenly his blood iced; he looked at Derik and saw nothing, nothing but a grinning skull… a skull, laughing… he rubbed his hands over his eyes and Derik was simply sitting there with his good-natured dimwitted grin.
Hastur said quietly, “You have a good point, sir. But Prince Derik and comynara Linnell were childhood sweethearts, and it would be cruel to part them now. There are others who can bring fresh blood into Council.”
Regis thought, cynically, maybe that’s a good name for what I am doing, fathering nedestro sons wherever I wish… the women don’t seem to object, and neither do their fathers, since I am Hastur of Hastur.. .and his thoughts slid aside, as he saw Lady Callina rise, looking tall and stately in her crimson ceremonial robes.
“This matter is not for Council meddling,” she said, pale as death, “Linnell is my ward! I have given consent to her marriage and that is enough!”
“Meddling, lady?” asked Di Asturien, “That’s a strange way to put it. Marriages in Comyn are supposed to be settled by the Council, aren’t they?”
“I am Head of Aillard. Linnell’s marriage is not for the Council to agree or disagree.”
“But the prince’s is,” the old man insisted. “I protest it, and I’m sure there are others!”
Derik said amiably, “Can’t you trust me to choose my own wife, sir? Or am I to imitate a Dry-Towner and have half a dozen wives and barraganas? Even a prince should have a few areas of private choice.”
“What does the lady say about it?” asked old Di Asturien, and Linnell, sitting in Callina’s shadow, colored and shrank away.
“This marriage was approved by the Council a long time ago,” she said, almost in a whisper. “If somebody was going to protest against it, they should have done so years ago. Derik and I were handfasted when I was fourteen and he was twelve. There’s been time enough to protest it before this, and before we—before we had our hearts set on each other.
”
“That was a long time ago, and the Council was stronger then,” said the old man, grumpily. “There are plenty of women in the Domains with good blood in ’em. He didn’t have to choose a sister of another Domain Head.”
“With respect, sir,” said Lord Hastur, “we have heard what you have to say. Is there anyone within Comyn who wants to speak on this?”
“I will not hear,” said Callina, in pale rage. “I have given consent to this marriage, and there is no other with the power by law to change it.”
“And if anyone tries,” said Derik, “I will challenge him anywhere.” He laid his hand to sword-hilt.
And for a moment it seemed to Regis that he saw the Council as Lerrys had seen it: children, squabbling over toys, that contemptuous You’ll whip out your little sword and cut me to pieces with it. Derik had spoken as honor and Comyn law demanded, yet he sounded like a blustering fool. Derik was a fool, of course. But had he ever had a chance to be anything else? Were they all, in Comyn, just such fools?
But Hastur was going, calmly, along with custom. He said to Di Asturien, “Sir, are you ready to accept Prince Derik’s challenge?”
The old man shrank.
“All Gods forbid, sir! I, challenge Hastur of Elhalyn and my lawful prince? I was just putting the question, Lord Hastur, no more than that.” He bowed to Derik. “Su serva, Dom.” And Regis, watching the dignified old man retreat, almost servile, heard again Lerrys’s question.. .playing at lords and ladies… why, because of his ancestry, should a fool like Derik make an old and honorable man, of excellent lineage and long service to his country, cringe like that?
I get it too. From the time I was ten years old, Guards following me around like so many governesses, for fear I would break a toenail—why, in heaven’s name?
Preoccupied again, he missed the next words of Hastur, and roused suddenly to shock when Hastur called out, “The Seventh Domain! Aldaran!”
Then Regis heard a voice he had never thought to hear again, speaking from behind the curtain; then the curtain rings clashed with a small metallic clamor, and a tall man came and stood at the edge of the railing.
He looked like Lew; older, and unscarred, but the resemblance was still there; he might have been Lew’s elder brother. He said, “I am here for Aldaran; Beltran-Kermiac, Lord of Aldaran and Scathfell.”
And the shocked silence in the Crystal Chamber was shattered by Lew’s loud cry.
“I protest!”
* * *
CHAPTER EIGHT
« ^ »
Lew Alton’s narrative
I didn’t know I was going to protest until I heard myself doing it.
I heard them call Aldaran’s name, and realized that this was actually happening; it was not a nightmare. I had heard the voice in nightmares, often enough. He was still so much like me that I have seen twins less alike; although now, no one could mistake us… bitterness overwhelmed me. It was he who had worked to summon Sharra; and there he stood, unscathed; while I, who had suffered to stem the fire-storm he had raised, and contain Sharra again, so that it should not ravage our world from the Bay of Storms to the Wall Around the World—I stood here, scarred and mutilated, more of an outcaste than he.
“I protest!” I shouted again, leaping down until I stood at the center of the open space, facing him.
Hastur said mildly, “We have not yet called for a formal challenge. You must state the reasons for your protest.”
I fought to steady my voice. Whatever my own hate—and I felt that it would rise and swallow me—I must speak now calmly. Hysteria would only harm my cause; no matter what protests, incoherent accusations, were tumbling over one another in my mind, I must plead my cause with quiet rationality. I grasped at the presence in my mind, the alien memories I carried; how would my father have spoken? He had usually been able to make them do his will.
“I declare—” I began, trying to steady my voice against the flood, “I declare—the existence—of an unsettled blood feud.” Blood feud was held, everywhere in the Domains, to be an obligation surmounting every other consideration. “His life is—is mine; I have claimed it.”
To this moment our eyes had not met; now he raised his head, and looked at me, skeptical, concerned. I turned my own away. I did not want to remember that once I had called this man cousin and friend. Gods above, how could the man stand there and look me calmly in the eye and say, as he was saying now, “I did not know you felt that way, Lew. Do you blame me for everything then? How can I make amends? Certainly I was not aware of any such quarrel as that.”
Amends! I clenched the stump of my arm with my good hand, wanting to shout, can you make amends for this? Can you give me back six years of my life, can you bring back— Marjorie? For once in my life I was grateful for the presence of the telepathic dampers without which all this would have blasted through the room with the full force of the hyper-developed Alton rapport—but I said doggedly, “Your life is mine; when, where and as I can.”
Beltran spread his hands slightly, as if to say, “What is this all about?” Before the puzzled look in his eyes, I swear that for a moment I doubted my own sanity. Had I dreamed it all? My fingernails clenched in my wrist, and I reminded myself; this was no nightmare.
Hastur said sternly, “Your words are nothing here, Lord Armida.” I remembered, after a shocked second; this was my name, not my father’s; I was Lord Armida now.
“You have forgotten,” Hastur went on, “blood feud is forbidden here in Comyn as among equals.” The word was a counterplay on words; the word comyn meant, simply, equals in rank or status.
“And I state,” said Beltran calmly, “that I have no grudge against my cousin of Alton; if he believes there is a blood-feud between us, it must arise from a time in his life when he was—” and I could see everyone in Council saying what he seemed, so kindly, to forbear saying: from a time when he was mad—
The very existence of Comyn, the Seven Domains of the Hastur’s kin, was predicated on an alliance prohibiting blood-feud, Comyn immunity. Which Beltran, damn him, now enjoyed. Zandru send him scorpion whips! Was there no way to stop this farce?
Where I was standing I could not see her; but Callina rose and came forward, her crimson Keeper’s veils fluttering as if in an invisible breeze. I turned as she spoke; she stood there, strange, distant, remote, not at all like the woman I had held in my arms and pledged to support. Her voice, too, sounded faraway and overly distinct, as if it came, not from her, but somehow through her.
“My lord Aldaran, as Keeper of Comyn I have the right to ask this of you. Have you sworn allegiance to Compact?”
“When I am pledged Comyn,” Beltran said, “I am ready to swear.”
She gestured and said, “Your army stands out there, bearing Terran weapons, in defiance of Compact. Are we to allow you in Comyn when you have not yet sworn to observe the first law of Comyn, in return for welcoming you among us?”
“When I swear to Comyn,” said Beltran with silken suaveness, “my Honor Guard shall give up those weapons into the hands of my promised wife.”
I saw Callina flinch at the words. There were telepathic dampers all over the room, but still it seemed that I could read her thoughts.
If I do not agree to this marriage, it means war. The last war in the Domains decimated the Comyn. Beltran could wipe us out altogether.
She raised her eyes and looked at him. She said, her words dropping into deathly silence, “Why, then, my lord of Aldaran, if you are content with an unwilling bride—” she hesitated; I knew she did not turn or look at me, but I sensed the trapped despair behind her words—“then I agree. Let the handfasting be held on Festival Night.”
“Be it so,” said Beltran, with that smile that was like a mask over his true feelings, and bowed. I stood, without moving, as if my feet were rooted to the floor of the Crystal Chamber. Were they really going to do this? Were they going to sell Callina to Beltran, to prevent war? Was there no one who could lift a hand against this mons
trous injustice?
In a final appeal I cried out, “Will you have him in Council, then? He is sealed to Sharra!”
He turned directly to me, then, and said, “So are you, cousin.”
To that, there was nothing I could say. I felt at that moment like doing what Lerrys had done, and storming out of the Council, cursing them all.
I have never been quite sure what happened next. I know that I made a move to resume my seat, had taken a few steps toward the Alton enclosure, when I heard a cry, in a woman’s voice. For a moment it sounded so like Dio’s that I stood frozen; then Derik cried out, too, and I turned to see Beltran take a step back and thrust out his hands, as if to guard himself.
Then there were cries everywhere, shouts of dread and terror; backing a little away into the enclosure, I saw it, hanging in the air above us, growing, menacing—
The form of a chained woman, hair of flame, tossing, ravening, growing higher, higher, with the crackling sound of forest-fire… Sharra! The fire-form, Sharra— Now I knew it was a nightmare from hell, I backed away, too, from the rising flames licking at us, the smell of burning, the flood of terror, of hate, the corner of hell which had opened up for me six years ago…
I clutched at vanishing self-control before I could cry out again and disgrace myself by screaming like a woman. The Form of Fire was there, yes; it hovered and flickered and trembled above us, the shape of a woman, her head thrown back, three times the height of a tall man, the flames licking at her hair. Marjorie! Marjorie, burning, overshadowed by Sharra… then I caught at vanishing rationality.
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