The Shadow Matrix

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  with the start of cataracts and announced, "They have to grow out of it—pampering won't help!"

  At the time he had thought that an odd answer, and since the two ancient women had been Priscilla's nurses years before, he had wondered if they had ignored her in the same manner when she was a girl. That would certainly explain Priscilla's peculiarities. Having had the attention of loving and concerned servants all his own childhood, Mikhail was hard pressed to imagine the neglect he suspected.

  He heard muttering, and knew it must be Becca. Wena was almost always silent, while Becca never seemed to stop talking. Both were really past their work, and should have been given retirement long since. With the refusal of the villagers to stay at Halyn House, though, he was glad of their presence, as little help as they actually were.

  They claimed to have been nurses to Alanna Elhalyn, who had been dead for over half a century. Mikhail guessed they were almost eighty, though neither of them would admit it. And they possessed all the irritating habits of old retainers—treating everyone as if they were quite young and a little slow, insisting that they knew best, and refusing to change their ways.

  His admiration for his mother, Javanne Hastur, increased as he had tried to cope with this unlikely bunch of youngsters. He had taken a spare moment to write her to that effect, and shipped the letter off with a messenger, but he had received no reply. She was either still sulking up at Armida, feeling betrayed by both her brother Regis and by Mikhail himself, or already in Thendara, fomenting intrigue. Sternly, he set his thoughts aside and followed the howling sound which he recognized all too well now.

  Emun was sitting in the middle of his bed, clutching the bedclothes, his head thrown back, a thin, terrible noise emanating from his slender neck. He was a skinny boy, all knees and elbows and eyes too large in a narrow face. The pale reddish hair, tangled and matted now from thrashing in the bed, looked dirty, and he had bitten his lower lip until it bled. There were deep circles under his blue eyes, and Mikhail knew he had torn the palms of his hands with his short fingernails.

  Emun was showing signs of threshold sickness, but he had not yet begun to manifest the actual disease. This had

  puzzled Mikhail more than a little, when he had the energy to think. The onset of laran was usually accompanied by this illness, sometimes violently and sometimes otherwise. In Mikhail's case, it had been a fairly mild event, but he remembered how sick Marguerida had been the previous summer at Ardais Castle, and, despite what he had learned at Arilinn, he remained doubtful of his ability to deal with it.

  Tonight, his mind almost clear for a change, he found himself wondering why it had not either arrived in full force, or remained in abeyance. Mikhail had been told at Arilinn, and knew from his own experience, that when it began, it came all at once. Emun's apparent false starts were puzzling, and while he was grateful that he was not having to deal with the full-blown problem, he was worried that when it arrived, he would not really be capable of handling it.

  It was, he felt, as if something was preventing Emun from coming into whatever laran he would possess as an adult, if these nightmares did not kill him first. That was impossible, of course, unless either Priscilla or Emelda were interfering with the lad's channels in some manner. To Mikhail, such an action was unthinkable, but he knew that Ashara Alton had overshadowed not only Marguerida, but numerous other women during the centuries since her death. So, while he might find the idea horrifying, clearly there were people who were not governed by his own ethics.

  Liriel would know the answer to many of his questions. Liriel! That was what he had been trying to remember when he went to bed! As a matrix technician, she was superb, though her innate modesty prevented her from realizing her potential. And she could test the girls, he realized, which was something it would be quite inappropriate for him to do. They were young enough to be his daughters, and that put them out of bounds for him. Now, if he could just keep a thought in his head long enough to do something!

  As soon as Mikhail formed this idea, he felt the familiar sense of mental exhaustion, passivity, and despair. He struggled with it, the subtle feeling of loss, unworthiness

  and fear that gnawed at him during every waking hour. He had no time for his own concerns now.

  Mikhail sat down on the edge of Emun's bed and took one small shaking hand in his own. The other boys were asleep in the big bed, or pretending to be. Emun's night terrors were so frequent an occurrence that his screams rarely roused them.

  He studied the child. The pupils of the boy's eyes were pinpricks in the flickering light of a bedside candle, and he stared at Mikhail without recognition. Tears streaked his cheeks, and he was clammy with sweat. Becca, grumbling audibly, shuffled into the room. She grunted and put a small log on the little fire that was banked in the hearth. Then she set a pot on it, and began to heat some water for tea.

  "Emun, what is it?"

  The boy did not answer immediately. He looked at the corners of the room, into the deep shadows, and seemed to be expecting something to jump out at him. His hand clamped on Mikhail's, as if holding on for his life. Finally, Emun's eyes dilated toward normalcy, and his thin shoulders relaxed. "I don't know. Something bad was in here."

  Mikhail waited. All the younger children were convinced the house had ghosts. He had learned a little of the history of Halyn House since his arrival, that it had been built for the mother of some Elhalyn who could not abide her daughter-in-law, four generations before. One of the workmen from the village had said that the long dead woman still walked, and swore he had seen her. By all accounts, Maeve Elhalyn had been a determined woman, one who brooked very little opposition, the terror of her children and grandchildren. It might be her ghost, he thought, or that of the handmaid she had purportedly murdered in a fit of fury. The place was so isolated that Maeve could have slain a bevy of servants without anyone's being the wiser.

  Sometimes he had the feeling that the place really was haunted, as Armida was, though all the Alton spooks seemed to be benign. He had seen, things drifting through the corridors a couple of times that made the flesh on his arms go bumpy, and heard some moans that were not the product of childish mischief. He was not overly imaginative, so he tried to find logical explanations, such as the house

  settling, or the wind coming in oddly. But he could not deny that the Halyn House was an eerie place, with the smell of sulfur from the springs coming when the wind blew from the north, and all the shadows.

  "Was it a dream or something else?" Mikhail asked the question very quietly. He reached behind Emun and plumped the pillows, then leaned the boy back against them. Becca came over with a cracked mug full of sweet smelling tea, and set it on the table by the bed. The old woman tugged the covers straight, giving Mikhail a glance that suggested he was not competent for such, then tucked them around Emun's shallow chest, clucking under her breath. The stink of toothrot wafted from her mouth, and Mikhail tried to ignore it.

  "There was something in the room—a spook—and it was

  trying to get me," Emun replied. He took the mug off the

  nightstand and drank a large mouthful, then coughed as it

  went down the wrong way."*

  Mikhail patted the lad on his thin shoulders. When Emun managed to catch his breath, he asked, "Why would a spook try to get you, Emun?"

  "It was angry," the boy answered, as if this explained everything.

  "I see. Angry at you, or just angry."

  Emun considered the question and settled more comfortably into the pillows. He seemed to be relaxing, and Mikhail was grateful. There had been several nights recently when nothing had calmed him except powerful herbs, which left him dull and stupid the next day. "It felt like it was trying to eat me up," he finally said.

  "Eat you?" This was new, and Mikhail was alarmed.

  "Like a banshee."

  "Emun, banshees don't come this far from the mountains."

  "I know that, Mik!" He went from being a terrified boy to being a n
ormal adolescent in a flash, and tried to grin feebly. "I said 'like' a banshee!"

  "Yes, you did. But since you have never seen a banshee, I don't know how you can make a comparison."

  "Well, I can. Vincent told me all about them."

  "And how many banshees has Vincent met?"

  Emun laughed at this. "None, of course. I don't know anyone who has ever seen one, unless you have."

  "No, I have not, for which I am sincerely glad. My father saw one, when he was high up in the Hellers years ago, and from his description, it is a thing I am happy to have forgone."

  Emun smiled wanly at Mikhail's words. "Maybe it was the ghost of banshee." He looked now like a very ordinary lad, not the completely terrified boy he had been a few minutes before.

  Mikhail reflected for a moment on the strangeness of this conversation, but all he was really concerned about was calming Emun and getting back to sleep. No, there was something he had to do first. Why couldn't he remember what it was? "That is a pretty scary idea—and I don't think you came up with it yourself. Did Vincent tell you that banshees had ghosts?"

  "Yes," Emun admitted reluctantly. "He said nothing could stop the ghost of one."

  "I have never heard of anything like that! And I believe I would have. Now put the dream out of your mind, young man. Just finish your tea, and go back to sleep."

  "I muh tend to these cuts, first, Dom Mikhail," Becca interjected. "They be bad, and I dun' want young Emun to take a inflammation. Yur the apple of my eye, Emun, and dun't you furget it," She pinched his thin cheek in her bony fingers, and Emun looked as if he would have liked to have throttled her for treating him like a baby.

  "Yes, of course," Mikhail answered, looking away to spare Emun the embarrassment of having a witness. He could sense that the lad was feeling stronger from his anger at the old nurse, and that this was restoring what little vigor the boy possessed. It was as much as he could hope for. "I will leave you to it."

  Mikhail left the boy's room quickly, glad that this nightmare had not given the boy fits. He was going to have to do something about Vincent Elhalyn, but he was not sure what. The logical thing would be to send him to Arilinn, if it was not too late for that already. He frowned at the idea of bullying Vincent encountering Mestra Camilla MacRoss. But Priscilla, while she had urged him to take Vincent and go, was absolutely adamant that he should not enter a

  Tower for training. It was almost as if she were afraid that something would be discovered about the lad, or that something would happen to him. And, as with her other strictures, she offered no reasonable explanation. Indeed, he should have gone there, or to another Tower, as soon as he showed his laran.

  Val had warned him just a few hours before that Vincent would find a way to get revenge for being sent from" the dining room, and he had not taken her seriously. He was a fool, and a failure. He couldn't even manage to discipline an adolescent! What good was he? How could he have ever imagined he was fit to rule!

  As he trudged wearily back toward his room, Mikhail decided he simply must get some help, and right away. It gave him a hollow feeling of failure, that he could not manage the simple task of testing the Elhalyn children and discovering which of them would make a suitable king without the aid of others. Then he remembered something Lew Alton had told him, one day while they walked together in the day garden at Arilinn. The two of them had spent a lot of time together there, and they had become close in a way Mikhail had never been intimate with his own father. How annoyed Dom Gabriel Alton would have been if he had known, and how betrayed he would have felt.

  "It is a wise man who knows his own limitations," Lew had said. Then he had added with a certain dryness, "It has taken me several decades to understand that."

  That memory reassured him, and the sense of failure faded. He wished he could talk to Lew again, because he was sure the older man would .offer him wise counsel. Where was he? In Thendara, likely, or at Arilinn visiting Diotima. Mikhail paused, hesitant as he was so frequently these days. He couldn't bring himself to run to Lew Alton or anyone else with his problems. There had to be another way.

  The back of his neck itched then, and he reached up to

  scratch it. After a second, Mikhail realized it was not physical itch, but a mental one. Liriel! The image of his sister

  danced in and out of his consciousness, like a shimmering

  veil. It was as if just the thought of her caused his mind to

  scatter like leaves in the wind.,

  Grimly, he concentrated, making the picture of his sister

  stronger in his mind. He thought of her full-fleshed body, soft and yet quite strong. Mikhail remembered the way her garments always smelled of mountain balsam mixed with one of her incenses—a sharp, refreshing scent. He felt his hands curl into fists as he passed Mathias sitting in the hall. The Guardsman gave him a look, lifted an eyebrow in curiosity.

  "How's the lad?"

  "As well as he can be with being frightened all the time."

  "I am glad. He is a good boy, you know, when he isn't shivering in his bedclothes."

  "Yes, I do know, and it goes to my heart that he is so plagued. I tell you, Mathias, this place is . . ."

  "Cursed, my lord?"

  "I was going to say unhealthy, but cursed will serve."

  "Are we going to remain here?"

  "I don't really know." Again, he felt possessed by indecision.

  "We will be snowbound in a couple of weeks, you know." Mathias spoke the words with his usual ponderous-ness, as if trying to convey some vital information without quite saying it.

  "Yes, I know." And I don't know if I can survive an entire winter in this house.

  Mikhail opened the door to his room, and went inside. He stood before the fading fire for a time, his hands clasped behind his back in an unconscious imitation of Regis. Now he felt less unsure of himself, and his sense of resolution increased as he waited. He would contact Liriel, who had much more experience in these matters, and ask her advice. Mikhail found his mouth drawing into a slow smile. He had never asked Liriel for anything before, but somehow he knew she would be very pleased.

  He added a few pieces of wood to the fire, sat down, and drew his matrix stone from beneath his nightrobe. His fingers fumbled at the drawstrings of the silken pouch, and he nearly dropped it. He sensed a mental pressure, just a hint of something, so vague and subtle he could hardly believe it was real. Mikhail ignored it, focusing all his thoughts and energy on just getting the jewel into his palms.

  As Mikhail stared into the faceted depths of his matrix, he found himself thinking not of his sister, but of Marguer-

  ida. He glanced at his rumpled bed and frowned. The covers should be tossed with love. He wondered if it was ever going to be possible to marry the woman he loved so deeply, longed for with every breath.

  It was a delightful distraction, to think of Marguerida, but he suspected that he would regret it later. The important thing now was to reach Liriel. Slowly, with enormous concentration, he forced his mind to empty of any thought except the need to contact his sister.

  Liriel!

  What! It is the middle of the night! You seem to be calling from the wrong end of a well, bredu.

  He found his mouth trying to widen into a grin. The tense muscles of his face felt taut and unwilling to move in this now foreign manner. Liriel was a deep sleeper and a slow awakener. He could sense her grumpiness, and discovered that it had a quality of refreshment, for it was a simple emotion, without any secret meanings. Forgive me, Liri.

  What do you want?

  He hesitated, unsure again. Help. Advice.

  From me? You never asked my advice except on the best diet for ferrets in my whole life. Mik, are you well?

  Not really. There is something going on here that is beyond my abilities, and I truly need you. Can you come to Halyn House?

  Come to ... are you giddy? No, I suppose not. You have never asked for my help before, so it must be very serious. Why me?

&
nbsp; That cuts to the heart of it, Liri.

  Is it something to do with the children? Marguerida told me you call them the Elhellions. Are they obnoxious?

  I wish they were. I could bear some healthy brattiness, but this . . . they are being frightened to death, Liri. Something terrible is going on in this house, and I. . .

  What do you mean?

  Mikhail considered his next thought, and felt a mild confusion that lasted only a moment, but left him chilled and anxious. It is difficult to put into words.

  Mik, what just happened? You . . . faded for a second.

  That is pan of the problem. Priscilla has this woman here, Emelda, who dresses like a leronis and . . .

  She does what?

  Liri, if you keep on interrupting me, I will never be able to tell you anything!

  Sorry, Mik. You know how I am when I am awakened suddenly.

  Yes, I know. Anyhow, this woman seems to have some influence over Priscilla and the children, and I have no idea what to do about it. She has laran, but more than that I cannot tell you. She says she is an Aldaran, but I rather doubt that. He hesitated again. I think she has been muddling my mind.

  Do you mean that you have been living in a house with another telepath, and you never thought to mention it to anyone? She sounded very put out.

  I do. Every time I start to think about... 7 get so . Liri, help me!