One by one Beltran’s men were coming up, laying down their Terran blasters before Lady Callina, kneeling and pronouncing the brief formula dating back to the days of King Carolin of Hali, when the Compact had been devised; that no man should bear a weapon beyond the arm’s reach of him who wielded it, so that any man who would kill must dare his own death— Callina looked cold and cross.
“Can’t we go a bit nearer, sir? I can’t see or hear ’em,” the Guardsman asked.
Regis replied, “Go, if you like; I can see well enough from here.” His voice was absentminded; he himself was down there, a few steps from Callina. He could sense her inner raging; she was only a pawn in this, and like Regis, she was at the mercy of Comyn Council, without power to rebel even as effectively as Regis could do.
Regis had protested once, long ago, that the path was carved deep for a Comyn son, a path he must walk whether he wished or no… stronger yet were the forces binding Comyn daughters. He must have thought this more strongly than he realized, for he saw Callina turn her head a little and look, puzzled, at the spot where Regis felt himself to be and, not seeing him, frown a little, but he followed her thoughts: Ashara would protect me, but her price is too high… I do not want to be her pawn…
The ceremony seemed endless; no doubt Beltran had structured it that way, so that the Comyn witnesses might witness his strength. There was a high heap of Terran weapons, blasters and nerve guns, at Callina’s feet. What in Aldones’s name, does Beltran think we are going to do with them? Hand them over to the Terrans? For all we know, he might have as many more in Aldaran itself!
Beltran has made a demonstration of strength. He hopes to impress us. Now we need some counter-demonstration, so that he need not go away thinking that he has done what we had not the power to make him do…
His eyes met the eyes of Dyan Ardais. Dyan turned, looking up at the distant spot on the wall where Regis stood. Regis did, without thinking about it, something he had never done before and did not consciously know how to do; he dropped into rapport with Dyan, sensing the man’s strength and his exasperation at the way this put Beltran into a position of power.
Strengthen me, Dyan, for what I must do! He felt Dyan’s thoughts, surprise at the sudden contact, an emotion of which Dyan was not quite consciously aware… su servo. Dom, a veis ordenes emprézi… in the inflection with which he would have put himself at Regis’s orders, now and forever, in life and death at the disposal of a Hastur… once, on the fire-lines during his first year as an officer in the Guards, he had been sent with Dyan into the fire-lines when forest-fire raged in the Venza hills behind Thendara, and once he had looked up and found himself working at Dyan’s side, strained to the uttermost, shared effort in every nerve and muscle. It was very like being back to back, swords out, each guarding the other’s back like paxman and sworn lord… he felt Dyan’s strength backing his as he reached out blindly with his telepathic force—
GET BACK! It was a cry of warning, telepathic and not vocal, but everyone in the crowd experienced it, edged backward. The great heap of weapons began to glow, reddened, turned white-hot…
They vanished, vaporized; there was a great sickening stench for a moment, then that too was gone. Callina was staring, pale as death, at the empty blackened hole in the ground where they had been. Regis felt Dyan’s touch almost like a kinsman’s embrace; then they fell apart again…
He was alone, staring from his isolated watch-post on the wall at the empty space where the great heap of weapons had been. He heard his grandfather’s voice, seizing this opportunity as if he himself had been responsible:
“Kneel now, Beltran of Aldaran, and swear Compact to your assembled equals,” he said, using the word Comyn. Still somewhat dazed at the destruction which had overshadowed his dramatic gesture of giving up his weapons, Beltran knelt and spoke the ritual words.
“And now,” he said, coming up to Callina and bending to kiss her fingertips, “I claim my promised wife.”
She was rigid, conceding only the cold tips of her fingers, but she said, in a voice only half audible, “I will handfast myself to you tonight. I so swear.” Regis could not see her now, he was too far away, but he knew she was cold with rage, and he did not blame her at all.
And then he caught another stray thought he hardly recognized.
I do not need these weapons, for there is a better one at my command than anything the Terrans have made—
Was that Dyan? He did not recognize the touch. Nor would he recognize Beltran’s; when he had been imprisoned in Castle Aldaran he had been a boy, without laran, unwakened, and he would not have recognized Beltran’s mental “voice.”
But a cold and icy shudder went over him, as he knew just what weapon was meant. Was Beltran really mad enough to think of using—that?
And if I have power over Sharra, is it I that must face it?
He had a certain amount of power over the Form of Fire, at least when it manifested itself within a matrix. But neither Rafe nor Javanne had been fully inside Sharra. He did not think he could free Lew’s matrix as he had freed theirs. Lew had been closely sealed to Sharra… and Regis cringed away from that thought.
But he must risk it… but first he should give Rafe’s message. A brief, swift searching told him Lew was nowhere in the crowd at his feet, and he realized that something was happening to his laran for which he had not in the least been prepared: he was using it almost carelessly, without effort.
Is this, then, the Hastur Gift?
Forcibly he put that thought, that fear, aside, and went in search of Lew Alton. By the time he found him, Rafe would be there, and he sensed that Lew would not want to confront Rafe Scott unprepared.
Nor was Regis prepared for seeing Lew as he saw him when first old Andres ushered him into the Alton apartments. It did not seem, for a moment, that it was Lew at all, it did not seem that it was a person at all, just a swirling mass of forces, a presence of anger, a touch of a familiar voice.. .Kennard? But he is dead… and a swift awareness of the terrifying Form of Fire. Regis blinked and somehow managed to bring Lew’s physical presence into focus, to bring the new and terrifying dimensions of his own laran under control. What was happening to him? He never used laran like this, he rarely used it at all… but now, giving it even the slightest mental lease seemed to mean that it would fly like a hawk, free, unwilling to return to being hooded— He forced it down, forced himself to see Lew instead of simply touching him. But the touch came anyhow, and through the texture of it he recognized something he had felt when he linked with Dyan. Quite simply he found himself saying aloud, “But of course; he was your father’s cousin, and close kin to the Altons. Lew, didn’t you know that Dyan had the Alton Gift?”
Of course, this is how he could force rapport on Danilo, this is how he makes his will known and enforces it…
But this is misuse…he uses it thus, to force his will… and this is the gravest crime for one with laran—
He was never trained in its use…He was sent from the Tower…The Alton Gift can kill, and they turned him loose, untrained, not knowing his own power…
Perhaps like mine, wakening late and suddenly growing as mine has grown, like growing out of my clothes when I was a lad, I am not strong enough nor big enough to contain this monstrous thing which is the Hastur Gift…
With main force Regis shut off the flow and said shakily aloud, “Lew, can you put a damper on? I’m not—not used to this.”
Lew nodded, went quickly to a control, and after a moment Regis felt the soothing vibration, blurring the patterns. He was again alone, in control of his own mind. Exhausted, he dropped in a chair.
Dyan is not to blame. The Council did not do their duty by him, but turned him loose, his Gift untrained, unchanneled…
As with mine! But again Regis stopped the flow of thought; thinking, in dismay and outrage, that the damper should have done that. Before they could speak, the door opened and Rafe came in, unannounced.
Lew’s face darkened; bu
t Rafe said “Cousin—” in such a pleading way that Lew gave him an uneasy smile. He said, “Come in, Rafe. None of this is your fault; you’re a victim too.”
“It’s taken me all this time to get up courage enough to tell you this,” said Rafe, “but you have to know. Something the Legate said this morning meant that I didn’t dare wait any longer. I want you to come with me, Lew. There’s something you must see.”
“Can’t you tell me what it is?” Lew asked.
Rafe hesitated and said, “I would rather say this to you alone—” with an uneasy glance at Regis.
Lew’s voice was brusque. “Whatever you have to say; I’ve no secrets from Regis.”
Regis thought, I don’t deserve such confidence. But he slammed his mind shut, wanting no more of the telepathic leakage he suddenly seemed unable to shut out of his mind.
“There was no woman here to take charge,” said Rafe. “I went to your foster-sister. She agreed to take charge of her.”
“Of whom, in God’s name?” Lew demanded, then his mind quickly leaped to conclusions.
“This alleged child who’s been gossiped about in the Guards?”
Rafe nodded and led the way. It was not Linnell, however, who faced them, but Callina.
“I knew,” she said in a low voice. “Ashara told me… there are not many female children in the Domains who might be trained as I have been trained, and I think—I think Ashara wants her…” and she stopped, her words choking off. She gestured to an inner room. “She is there… she was afraid in a strange place and I made her sleep…”
In a small cot, a little girl, five or six years old, lay sleeping. Her hair was copper-red, freshly minted; scattered across her face, which was triangular, scattered with pale gold freckles. She murmured drowsily, still fast asleep.
Regis felt it run through Lew, like a powerful electric shock.
I have seen her before… a dream, a vision, a precognitive dream… she is mine! Not my father’s, not my dead brother’s, mine… my blood knows…
Regis felt his amazement and recognition. He said in a low voice, “Yes; it is like that.” When first he had looked upon the face of his newborn nedestro son there had been a moment of recognition, absolute knowledge, this is my own son, born of my own seed… there had never been any question in his mind; he had not needed the monitoring to tell him this was his own true child.
“But who was her mother?” Lew asked. “Oh, there were a few women in my life, but why did she never tell me?” He broke off as the little girl opened her eyes…
Golden eyes; amber; a strange color, a color he had never seen before, never but once— Regis heard the hoarse gasping cry Lew could not keep back.
“No!” he cried. “It can’t be! Marjorie died… she died… died, and our child with her— Merciful Evanda, am I going mad?”
Rafe’s eyes, so like the eyes Lew remembered, turned compassionately on them both. “Not Marjorie, Lew. This is Thyra’s child. Thyra was her mother.”
“But—but no, it can’t be,” Lew said, gasping, “I never— never once touched her—I would not have touched that hellcat’s fingertips—”
“I’m not quite sure what happened,” Rafe said. “I was very young, and Thyra—didn’t tell me everything. But there was a time, at Aldaran, when you were drugged… and not aware of what you were doing…”
Lew buried his face in his hand, and Regis, unable to shut out anything, felt the full, terrifying flow of his thoughts.
Ah Gods, merciful Evanda, I thought that was all a dream… burning, burning with rage and lust…Marjorie in my arms, but turning, in the mad way dreams do, to Thyra even as I kissed her— Kadarin had done this to me… and I remember Thyra weeping in my dream, crying as she had not done even when her father died…It was not her choice either, Thyra was Kadarin’s pawn too…
“She was born a few seasons after Caer Donn burned,” Rafe said. “Something happened to Thyra when this child was born; I think she went mad for a little while…I do not remember; I was very young, and I had been ill for a long time after the—the burning. I thought, of course, that it was Kadarin’s child, he and Thyra had been together so long…”
And Regis followed Rafe’s thoughts too, a frightening picture of a woman maddened to raving, turning on the child she had not wanted to bear, conceived by a shameful trick…with a man drugged and unaware. A child who had had to be removed to safety from time to time—
The little girl was awake now, sitting up, looking at them all curiously with those wide, improbable amber eyes. She looked at Rafe and smiled, evidently recognizing him. Then she looked at Lew, and Regis could feel it, like a blow, her shock at the sight of the ragged, ugly scars. Lew was scowling. Well, I don’t blame him—to find out, that way, that he had been drugged, used… Regis had seen Thyra only once or twice, and that briefly, but he had somehow, even then, sensed the tension of anger and desire between Thyra and Lew. And they had been together, sealed to Sharra…
The little girl sat up, tense as a small scared animal. Regis could feel again Lew’s shock at the sudden, frightening resemblance to Marjorie.
Then Lew said, his rough voice muted, “Don’t be scared, chiya. I’m not a pretty sight, but believe me, I don’t eat little girls.”
The little girl smiled. Her small face was charming, pointed in a small triangle. A tooth had come out of the middle of her smile.
“They said you were my father.”
“Oh, God, I suppose so,” Lew said. Suppose so. I know I am, damn it. He was wide open now, and Regis could not shut out his thoughts. Lew sat down uneasily on the edge of the cot. “What do they call you, chiy’lla?”
“Marja,” she said shyly. “I mean—Marguerida. Marguerida Kadarin.” She lisped the name in the soft mountain dialect. Marjorie’s name! “But I just be Marja.” She knelt upright, facing him. “What happen to your other hand?”
Regis had seen enough of Javanne’s children—and his own—to know how direct they were; but Lew was disconcerted by her straightforwardness. He blinked and said, “It was hurt and they had to cut it off.”
Her amber eyes were enormous. Regis could feel her thinking this over. “I’m sorry—” and then she said, trying the word out on her tongue, “Father.” She reached up and patted his scarred cheek with her small hand. Lew swallowed hard and caught her against him, his head bent; but Regis could feel that he was shaken, close to tears, and again could not shut out Lew’s thoughts.
I saw this child once, even before Marjorie and I were lovers, saw her in a vision, and thought it meant that Marjorie would bear my child, that all would be well with us—I foresaw; but I did not foresee that Marjorie would have been dead for years before ever this daughter of mine and I should meet…
“Where were you brought up, Marja?”
“In a big house with lots of other little boys and girls,” she said, “They’re orphans, but I’m something else. It’s a bad word that Matron says I must never, never say, but I’ll whisper it to you.”
“Don’t,” Lew said. He could guess; Regis remembered that there were still those who had called him bastard, even after he was acknowledged Heir to Alton. He had her snuggled on his lap now, in the curve of his arm.
If I had known, I would have come back—come back sooner. Somehow, somehow I would have managed to make amends to Thyra for what I did not remember doing…
Before Regis’s questioning look, Lew raised his head. He said doggedly, “I was drugged with aphrosone. It’s vicious stuff; you live a normal life—but you forget from minute to minute what is happening, remember nothing but symbolic dreams…I’ve heard that if you tell a psychiatrist what you remember of the dreams under the drug, he will be able to help you remember what really happened. I didn’t want to know—” and his voice stuck in his throat.
That must have been after they escaped from Aldaran, Regis thought; Marjorie and Lew escaped together, and Kadarin dragged them back, and drugged him, forcing him to serve as the pole of power for Sharra
… No wonder he did not want to remember.
“It doesn’t matter,” Lew said, reading Regis’s thoughts, and his arm went around the child, so fiercely that she whimpered in protest. “She’s mine anyhow.”
He looks ugly but he’s nice, I’m glad he’s my father…
They all stared at her in astonishment; she had reached out and touched their minds. Regis thought, but children never have the Gift—
“Thyra was half chieri, they said,” Lew said quietly. “Obviously, Marja does have it. It’s not common, though it’s not unknown. Your Gift waked early, didn’t it, Rafe—nine or ten?”
Rafe nodded. He said “I remember our—foster-father Lord Aldaran—telling us about our mother. She was daughter to one of the forest-folk. And Thyra—” he hesitated, not wanting to say it.
“Go ahead,” said Lew, “whatever it is.”
“You did not know… Thyra. She was… like the chieri. Emmasca; no one was sure whether she was boy or girl. I can remember her like that, when I was very small, but only a little. Then Kadarin came—and very soon after, she began to wear women’s clothing and think of herself as a woman… that was when we began to call her Thyra; before that, she had another name… you did not know that she was as old as Beltran, that she was past her twentieth year when Marjorie was born.”
Lew shook his head, shocked. Regis picked up the thought, I believed she was three or four years older than Marjorie, no more… and a welter of images, resentment and desire, Thyra playing her harp, looking up at Lew in passionate wrath, Thyra’s face suddenly, dreamlike, melting into Marjorie’s
… Marjorie, saying gently; “You were a little in love with Thyra, weren’t you, Lew?”
Lew set the child down. “I’ll have to find a nurse for her; there’s no woman in my apartments to look after her.” He stooped down and kissed the small rosy cheek. “Stay here with my kinswoman Linnell, little daughter.”
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