The Shadow Matrix

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  I am only tired, my love. And missing you.

  Well, go to sleep, then. I am glad to hear your voice,

  however distantly, but if you are herding small children, you will need your strength.

  Indeed, I will. They are none of them that small, Marguer-ida. The youngest of the children is twelve, I believe. Valenta. A very pretty little girl, though it is her sister, Miralys who is going to be the beauty.

  Are you trying to make me jealous?

  No. Are you?

  Just a little. But not of a child! I was never jealous before, that I can remember, so I can't be sure. I know you have resisted the charms of an entire panting generation of comely lasses, Mik, but I still worry. I mean, it would solve so many problems if you married one of the Elhalyn daughters, even though you are almost old enough to be. . . .

  Precisely. I am just old enough to have fathered them, which makes any alliance scandalous. Though, frankly, the idea of bedding Priscilla Elhalyn is repugnant.

  Good!

  Wicked woman!

  How old is she?

  Priscilla? About thirty-eight, though she looks older.

  A hag! I am delighted to hear it!

  Not quite that, but she seemed to be working toward hag-dom. Marguerida—you are the only woman in the world for me!

  Oh, Mik. I love you so much, and I miss you. If I were not so sad about little Domenic, I would be dancing around the room with joy.

  I will tell you something that came into my mind today— the names of our children. I have never, in my entire life, considered that.

  Me either. What names did you pick?

  I decided there were enough Gabriels and Rafaels in the family, but I thought Lewis would be a good name for a son, and perhaps Yllana for a daughter.

  I would never have thought of Yllana, but she was my grandmother. Wouldn't that choice make Aunt Javanne furious.

  My thought exactly!

  I think, though, that I would wish to name my first daughter Diotima.

  Why didn't I think of that? He knew that the reason he

  did not think of that name was because he could not bear the thought of Marguerida's mother not being alive.

  It doesn't matter. But it was a nice thing to think—Mik, would you mind terribly, if we have a son, if we called him Domenic? Mikhail was then swept with a powerful sense of sorrow and Tightness, at the same time. And he had a feeling that perhaps that Domenic, if he ever came into the world, would live long enough to fulfill a real destiny, instead of dying young, or being murdered, as had Domenic Lanart-Alton, after whom the Alars had named their son. Third time was a charm, they said. And he chided himself a little for being superstitious and silly with exhaustion.

  No, Marguerida. I think that would be wonderful!

  I'm glad. I was afraid you would not like the idea.

  Actually, it is perfect, and fitting. You seem to have some instinct for choosing well, my dearest.

  You only say that because I picked you to love! He had a sense of her easy laughter. You are falling asleep on me! Go to bed! Good night, my Mikhail, my beloved! Sleep well.

  Good night, Marguerida. Peace to you.

  5

  Two days later, Margaret and Lew Alton set out from Arilinn. The morning was overcast and there was a chill in the air that had not been there before. Dorilys was unusually frisky, -as if the brisk autumn breeze excited her. Lew was astride a big black with a white star on his brow, an older horse which seemed to find the mare's antics annoying, since he kept snorting at her.

  Margaret was glad to shake the dust of Arilinn from her skirts, although parting from Liriel had been sad. She did not know when she would see her cousin again—certainly not for months—and she found she was going to miss her a great deal. But that was her only regret, and if she never set eyes on Mestra MacRoss again, or some of the others at the Tower, she would tie content.

  Domenic's death had disturbed her more than she could have anticipated. She had somehow managed to avoid Ariel before her departure, even though she wanted to offer her heartfelt condolences. Liriel, coping with the main brunt of Ariel's grief, had assured her it would create more anguish for her sister to see Margaret. While she packed her things, she wept, her emotions veering wildly from anger to sorrow. How, she wondered, did anyone take the risk of having children, when such terrible things could happen to them? It was not a question which had occurred to her previously, and it perturbed her until she realized that what she was really wondering was whether she could ever take such a risk herself.

  For all her talk with Mikhail about naming a yet unborn child Domenic, the entire notion of bearing children frightened her. Not just the idea of becoming pregnant, but the consummation, the sheer physicality that must precede it, almost revolted her. She knew that while she was now free

  of the overshadowing that Ashara Alton had placed on her while she was a child, she still shrank from the thought of sex. It terrified her, even when she imagined Mikhail as her partner. She could mentally get to the undressing part, but after that Margaret found that she got chilly all over, and her throat closed up, so she could barely breathe.

  She had never even kissed a man until she pressed her lips to Mikhail's, with the entire city of Thendara laid out beneath them. It had been wonderful and terrifying. Maybe it was for the best that Dom Gabriel and Lady Javanne were so utterly opposed to any marriage between them, since she suspected that she would balk at the last minute. Her entire adult knowledge of that came from what she had seen in vid-drams, and it did not look very appealing. It was so physical! Damn Ashara for leaving her crippled like this! That thought was so silly that she chuckled, and the sound caused Dorilys to prick her ears and neigh in comment.

  I have lived too much in my mind, I suppose, and not enough in my body. If only the cure for it were not so . . . animalistic. And awkward! I don't know how anyone manages it, but it seems they must, or else the species would have died out long ago. I wish I could ask someone—but Liriel is as virginal as I am. It is something I might have been able to talk to Dio about. . . but. . . and I would die before I asked Father. Both of us would be very, embarrassed. Maybe Lady Linnea . . . no, I couldn't! Or even—God help me— Javanne!

  Still, the farther they got from the huge complex of matrix screens, the more relaxed she felt. It was as if some great pressure in her skull had gone away. Now, if she could just get her heart to behave, could cease longing for Mik and being repelled by the idea at the same time, perhaps she could feel peaceful as well as relaxed.

  After so many years of keeping herself apart from other people, of living a life of music without any real friends except Ivor and Ida Davidson, she found that she genuinely enjoyed the increasing intimacy she had with Liriel. It was a shame she had made no other friends at Arilinn, unless she counted Haydn Lindir, the archivist. He reminded her a little of Ivor—a pleasant, fussy old scholar with a vast

  store of knowledge. And, likely, Neskaya would be different, but not any better.

  Margaret was looking forward to returning to Thendara for a few days. She wanted to visit Master Everard in Music Street, and see Aaron and Manuella MacEwan in Thread-needle Street. She wanted -to see the headstone she had ordered for Ivor's grave, which was now finished and put into place. She missed her late mentor very much, and the death of Domenic Alar had opened a wound she thought had been healed. Margaret could remember seeing the dead when she was just a child, at the end of the Sharra Rebellion, but she had been-so young, and she had not grieved for those people. This was different, it was personal, and she had no recent experience to prepare her for the swings of mood and the deep emotions that battered her.

  Margaret was going to need some warmer clothing, for Neskaya was miles farther north, on the knees of the mountains. It was not, she had been informed, as cold as Nevarsin, the City of Snows, where the cristoforos had their monastery, but was likely very cold for her taste. She must remember to visit the glover as well. She tried not to think
about the Tower at Neskaya, though, because she was afraid she would encounter the same silent resentment she had met at Arilinn. Someday she would know enough to never have to enter a Tower again, but not yet. She was still too raw, too dangerous, to be out on her own. She knew she could leave Darkover, that no one could restrain her; she also knew this was not the proper course to follow, much as she might long to.

  Margaret forced herself to stop chasing her .demons. She wanted to look on the bright side, and so she began to think of Rafaella n'ha Liriel, her friend and former guide. She hoped the Renunciate would be in Thendara, and not off guiding traders or doing other business. Rafaella had been her first real friend on Darkover, and she treasured the woman. Besides, she was curious about how the budding romance between the guide and Margaret's uncle, Rafe Scott, was faring. She had sniffed it out while the two women had been in the Kilghards, and thought it amusing that if Rafaella chose to make Captain Scott her freemate, she would then, if in name only, be Margaret's aunt. This

  was a relationship she rather fancied, unlike the blood kinship she had with Javanne Hastur, Mikhail's mother.

  Fortunately, she and Lew had managed to escape Arilinn before Javanne arrived. She was coming to take her grandson's body for burial. They might meet upon the road, but Margaret hoped that they would not, for while Javanne was much too proud and dignified to say anything, just being around her made Margaret feel stuck full of pins. It would have been more proper to remain at Arilinn, to have accompanied the coffin back, but once Jeff Kerwin had been persuaded that she would be better served by studying with Istvana Ridenow, Margaret was too afraid he'd change his mind to chance staying longer.

  There had been some opposition to the idea of her leaving Arilinn after only a few months. It was still the most important Tower on Darkover, at least in reputation, and there was a degree of pride in being there. Those who had lived and worked at Arilinn for most of their adult lives regarded the other Towers as provincial, lacking in tone and character. And Istvana had, Margaret had discovered, a certain reputation for innovation that the older folk, like Mestra Camilla MacRoss, looked at askance. There was, it seemed, some small rivalry between the two Towers. To leave Arilinn after such a brief time smacked of subtle insult, and voices had been raised. She had not been privy to these discussions, but Lew had, and he had favored her with a rather biting commentary on the entire scene.

  She felt torn, as usual. Margaret wanted to avoid Javanne more than anything, but she felt like a coward because of it. Things had been so much less complicated before she arrived on Darkover, and she longed for the simplicity of her previous life. She might as well have asked for the moons, she decided, and tried to put it out of her mind.

  Margaret did not succeed. She found her mind running back to her own failings, and to the hostility of the younger students at Arilinn. She had studied, and she had studied hard, but she realized she had not enjoyed the experience, as she had enjoyed her time at University. Part of it was the attitude of the other students, which she felt keenly. The rest of it was her own resentment at being sent back to school, and to study something so alien as telepathy. She realized that if she had studied it as a youngster, it would

  have been less difficult than it was now, but there was no help for that. Besides, Margaret was fairly certain that if she had tried to confront the shade of Ashara Alton in her teens, she would not have lived to tell the tale.

  No matter how often she was told that she had nothing to fear from the long dead Keeper, that Ashara had been completely undone during her battle in the overworld, Margaret still had the certainty that she was not entirely finished with her ancestor. It was not just the presence of the network of lines on her flesh, but something more. It lacked the clarity of a foretelling, and she was relieved that she had not had any visions of the haunting little woman. As far as Margaret was concerned, if she never had another bout with the Aldaran Gift, it would be just fine. Telepathy she could deal with—barely—but the ability to see into the future was just too terrible to be borne.

  Of the three experiences she had had with the Aldaran Gift, it was the second which disturbed her the most. This had been about the child which Ariel Alar carried in her swelling womb—the girl they would call Alanna. There was something about the child swimming in Ariel's womb that she found disturbing. She had had the vision immediately after Domenic's accident. Margaret discovered she wanted very much to dismiss it as some stressful imagining. But she did not believe that, and she was too honest to pretend that she did.

  As for the last vision, the sight of Hali Tower as it had existed in the past, it did not bother her at all. She knew it worried Jeff and her father, but she could not help that. Not all visions came true, or happened as they were foreseen. Liriel had explained that, much to Margaret's relief. All she knew was that she had no great foreboding when she thought of Hali, as she did when she considered the yet unborn baby. She had already had more adventures, Margaret reflected, than most people had in three lifetimes; if she could arrange it, she was not going to have any more.

  Margaret chuckled, and Lew looked at her. "Might I share the joke?"

  "I was just thinking that I don't want any more adventures in my life!"

  Lew Alton roared with laughter, and it warmed her to hear it. His horse, however, took umbrage, and reared its

  head, jingling the rings on the bridle, and snorting. "Good luck," he said, when he finally managed to stop his merriment. "I hope you have a very boring life, daughter, but I doubt that you will. There is, it seems to me, something about us which attracts trouble."

  "Humph! I'd expect something like that from Aunt Ja-vanne, but not from you!"

  "Your aunt is a canny woman, despite her character flaws, Marguerida. She often called me 'storm crow,' and she was not far off the mark."

  "She always manages to make me feel like a bug." Margaret paused. "One she'd like to squash."

  "Oh, certainly. Javanne is a strong woman, a determined woman. She has always been that way. She likes to arrange things to suit herself. But I suspect she rather envies you."

  "What?"

  "She would never, never admit it, of course. But, chiya, think. You have been educated, have traveled between the stars, have seen other races—things she can hardly imagine. Javanne has lived in a small circuit—raising children at Armida, visiting Thendara to bully Regis, managing the lives of her young, without, you will notice, a great deal of success. It is not just Mikhail who escaped her thrall. He is only the most obvious. Liriel has chosen her own path which, in truth, is just as limited as Javanne's, but somewhat more varied. Gabe and Rafael are still unmarried, despite her efforts to the contrary. And Regis is not nearly as compliant as she wishes him to be. Not to mention the wear and tear of being married to Dom Gabriel."

  "I guess I had not thought about it like that. But why didn't she let Mikhail leave Darkover? I've never really understood that. I mean, after Danilo Hastur was born, when Regis didn't need Mik any longer, why did she oppose his leaving?"

  "I suspect that she would not allow him what she could not have herself. Javanne is a classic egotist, daughter. It is not a lovely thing, but since I suffer from something of the same affliction, I can pardon her faults more than you can. You are still very young, and very judgmental."

  "Classic? That is not a thing I would ever call you—or her, for that matter!"

  "No, but I am certainly an egotist. If I had not been, I

  would never have endured." He chuckled. "I never thought of myself in that way when I was young, of course, because one doesn't. If the young could have even an inkling of their innate self-centeredness, they would make a great many fewer mistakes."

  "I suppose that makes me an egotist, too." What a discouraging realization. Margaret flinched, since she thought of herself as fairly generous and helpful, not like her more gifted classmates at University, or even Ivor, who had been truly self-absorbed about his music.

  "Yes and no. You are a great
deal more mature than I was at your age, I believe. The result of your exposure to other cultures, one assumes. I think that seeing how others live is always humbling. And you lack my besetting sin— foolish pride. So many things in my life would have been different but for my pride, my refusal to ask for help, and my insistence on doing things my own way."

  "Well, if you end up surrounded by real talents, as I did in Ivor's house, you can't get stuck-up. You have no idea how humbling it is to be a fine second fiddle in a house full of musical geniuses! Not that they lorded over me, because Ivor and Ida did not permit it. But I knew that I was never going to be a real creator, the way Jheffy was. Still, being a Fellow of the University was a good thing, and I was extremely proud of it. I still am, and sometimes I wish I could just go back there and pick up where I left off."

  "Why?"

  "Father, research is very satisfying. There are no personalities to cope with—well, academic jealousies, of course— but you can bury yourself in the archives and just learn. There are some Scholars at University who spend their lifetimes learning—writing about their discoveries or giving lectures." She sighed, wondering if she could ever convey the joy she felt in being an academic. "A well-documented paper is a wonderful thing. It is real, something you can hold in your mind. An intellectual artifact. It does not matter what world you came from, or what your sex is, or how old you are. There is something very . . . pure about it."