The Sword of Aldones d-2

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  A slim, girlish form burst suddenly from an opened door and ran madly, as if compelled, toward Dyan. Kathie! A few inches short of where he stood, she stopped, digging in her heels in panic terror; but Dyan caught her about the waist with one arm and snatched up the Sharra-sword. Kathie screamed. She had been immune; but now, my block withdrawn from her mind, her blindness to Darkovan forces was withdrawn. Linnell’s duplicate — with Linnell’s powers. Dyan forced her savagely into the Sharra triad. Kathie and Dyan and Thyra seemed almost to coalesce, to flow together.

  The Sword of Aldones stirred like a live thing. Then Callina flung up her free arm and with all the concentrated force of a Comyn Keeper, wrenched Thyra out of the Sharra triad. It was only telepathic contact; not our deeply-molded rapport. I saw the lightning blast over Dyan, beat at him, and Callina’s cry rang in my brain.

  “Now, Lew! Now!”

  Desperately, a bare chance, I forced a wedge between Dyan and his pawn. Kadarin had been taken so far into Sharra that he could not withdraw. Hate Dyan as he would and did, they were sealed together. But Thyra might be still vulnerable. I sent, frantically, one thought to Thyra.

  Marja! Marja is dead! Dyan killed her!

  Thyra moved like a striking snake. She wrenched the Sharra matrix from Dyan’s hand; and with all the fury and rage and concentrated power of a mind trained by Kadarin, turned on him. And all the concentrated force of my Alton Gift struck through her as I, once sealed to Sharra, turned that full force-flow on Dyan.

  And I saw Dyan crumple, shrivel and fall to the pavement, his mind thinned and gone. Stone dead.

  The black mist pulsed like a heartbeat. It was trying to draw me into it! For a moment Regis and Kathie were flung out of the triads and for a moment it was threefold; Thyra, in Sharra; Callina, in Aldones; and I, pole of power, caught between them in that terrible struggle.

  But our threefold linkage was stronger; the link broke and I was free of Thyra — and Sharra. In the storms of living light Callina and I moved close, Callina’s hand insulating Regis’ hand from mine on sword hilt, her mind guarding us one from the other. If Regis and I had directly touched minds, if we had even physically touched hands, the power would have seared us to cinders.

  The pulsing black mist swept back, gathering itself for fresh assault, coagulating around Thyra and the dead men.

  And Kadarin rose!

  He was dead. He must have been dead. Yet horribly, with the galvanic movements of a strung puppet, he rose. I saw the blackness shake itself as three hands met on Sharra’s hilt. Fire-colors gleamed in its depth, and there was a tall shining in the black mist, that swept on us. The three shadows twisted like smoke. Then, through the darkness, the face looked out. The face I had seen on the black night when terror walked in the Comyn and Linnell died.

  But this time I knew what it was.

  Long before Ashara, the Keeper, a further Keeper — a woman, born a Hastur, with the living matrix inherent in body and brain — had forged a matrix which should duplicate the powers of the Sword of Aldones. Two identical matrices cannot exist in one space and one time; and Sharra, Keeper of the Hasturs, had thrust herself outside this world.

  Yet the matrix, not the living matrix of her brain, but the talisman matrix of the Sharra sword, remained here; and gave her a foothold in this world, through which she could be summoned when telepaths of certain skill should call her forth. Changed as she was, she still had power. And they called her daemon, Goddess.

  But Sharra had been bound once, by the Son of Hastur. So ran the legend Ashara had repeated. Now another Son of Hastur, braced to endure the force by a rapport of three

  Comyn minds, held the Aldones matrix, intent on forcing her back again.

  And under that power, space twisted and opened worlds reeled; Kathie was thrust back first, through the interlocking universes, to her own place from which we had snatched her. And in one thing, at least, the balance was restored.

  Now Thyra and Kadarin, alone, together, held that focus of Sharra’s power. They called me to them! I, once sealed to Sharra, wavered and bent like a candle in the wind toward that monstrous thing I had helped, years ago, to summon. I caught desperately at Callina to steady my hold.

  Callina faltered. The strength of Aldones’ power ceased; again the confusion, while lightning danced at the heart of the black flame where the Face of Sharra stared out horribly and beautifully between the reeling worlds.

  Callina was-GONE!

  Only Ashara’s cold, only Ashara’s icy nothingness, thinned against the eternities of space. I felt the triad of Aldones dissolve. Despairing, I felt myself drawn toward the ravenous maw of Sharra…

  Then, between a breath and a breath, there was a sharp shattering, as if a crystal broke under a cruel touch, and Callina was there again; I felt her strength, freed, cool and delicate, locking me to Regis again. Held steady. The blue lightning surged up, and our tripled brain was forged, suddenly, and welded, into a Cup. And into the Cup of Power flowed a force and a glory.

  Regis seemed to grow taller, to take on height and majesty and the cloak of blue light lapped his limbs.

  And clothed in his cloak of living light Aldones camel

  Like a white spark I could see the Sharra matrix, blazing out through the metal of the sword that held it. Pointing straight at the coruscating light that circled Regis like a diadem.

  Once, I think, Kadarin might have held Sharra’s power completely, and conquered. Nerves and body and brain — it was hardly sure at the last which was man, which matrix.

  But Kadarin was human; and at the end, when his sustaining hate of me had faded, I think there was something in him which broke and played traitor; which made him will for self-destruction; which broke Sharra and made the Thing vulnerable.

  Two identical matrices cannot exist in one space. While separate brains controlled them, they were non identical enough to remain, though the stress-conditions put the ground of battle in a little place outside space and time. But Sharra’s instrument had broken first. I knew, because for a moment everything that was weak or evil in me fought with Sharra, and for a moment, at the end, I was one with Kadarin and Thyra again, back in the old days. All the immense strength and courage of Kadarin, all Thyra’s beauty, generosity, grace, before the alien horror strangled her womanhood, these fought for Sharra too.

  Then the face dimmed to a wraith; Kadarin and Thyra, two tiny, separating ghosts, were flung into each other’s arms, and for a moment I saw them clinging together, silhouetted against the dissolving mist and fires. Then they were swept away, as Sharra’s ghost-face vanished into some reeling hell of darkness, and with it went Thyra and Kadarin, somewhere, somewhere…

  Aldones! Lord of the Singing Light! Is there mercy for them, too?

  Then that, too, was gone, and I, Lew Alton, was kneeling in the damp dawnlit courtyard, arms around Callina, before a shaking, trembling boy holding a sword from which all the lights had faded. And there was no sign of Kadarin or of Thyra or of Kathie. Dyan lay dead, a blackened corpse, on the scorched paving-stones. And in his hand the Sharra sword lay broken, a few shattered pieces of metal. There was no matrix now in the hilt of the sword. The hilt, blackened with fire, was dull and grayed, and the jewels lay scattered on the stones. The first rays of the red sun touched the castle turrets, and seemed to tremble for a moment in the heart of the jewels.

  They shimmered, evaporated like bright spots of blue dew — and were gone. The sword of Sharra was broken — and the power of Sharra was broken in this world, forever.

  Regis still held the Sword of Aldones. He was white, and trembling as if with deadly cold. Then, slowly, he sheathed the Sword. A flowing peace seemed to radiate from him, enlacing us in its net. The Sharra matrix had made Kadarin, who was not a bad man or a weak one, into a friend. The Sword of Aldones had made Regis — what?

  “Regis—” My lips were stiff on the sound of his name, “What are you?”

  “Hastur,” he said gravely.

  But the l
egend said Sharra was bound in chains by the son of Hastur, who was the son of Aldones, who was the son of Light.

  He turned away and walked toward the archway. His face was the face of a God, at that moment, yet something less — and more. Supreme content… and awful loneliness. Then that, too, dimmed out, and it was only a grave young man’s face, the face of one doomed to walk forever with the memory of an hour’s godhead — and be forevermore denied it

  The rising sun touched his hair-, snow white.

  He disappeared through the arched door.

  And I saw Dio Ridenow walking from the Keeper’s Tower, slowly, dazed, like a woman in a dream. Now’ when it was over — but I had no thoughts for Dio, for Callina had risen, and drew me to my feet.

  And for the first time without fear, I took Callina in my arms, crushing my mouth to hers.

  And all desire died as I looked into the cold eyes of Ashara.

  I should have known, all along.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Only a moment and it was Callina again, clinging to me, crying; but I had seen, and I knew. My arm fell and I stared in horror as she turned away, desolately. “Sharra,” I heard her whisper, “Sharra… Then it was no use, no use for me, and I cannot live…”

  “Not by treachery, Ashara!” Dio faced the sorceress, steadily, “Not by damning another as you doomed Callina! You failed, because Lew was too human, and because Callina was not human enough! You failed, you failed!”

  Stricken, madness rocking my brain, I came to where the frail figure cowered before Dio. Callina, Ashara — I could not tell. They blended; were one. Reason swam away; I took Callina blindly in my arms and the form and the face shifted and changed and were now Callina and now Ashara and now Callina again; then a look of peace and my arms were empty, and a whisper faded and died and was still.

  “Dio!” I sobbed the name and went to her arms like a hurt child, “Dio, Dio, have I gone mad?”

  There were tears on Dio’s face. “I tried so many times to tell you. Ashara was not real, had not been real for generations. Didn’t you wonder why her Tower room seemed so immense? It was not in the Tower at all, the blue door was a matrix, a — a gateway to somewhere else. She was only a — a thought-form by now. She lived in the matrix, and whenever she left it, to take place in Comyn Council,-she went in the body of one of the Keepers. Her power was so immense, and they were so frail, that for many generations she effaced them altogether; she only seemed ageless. She was born an Alton, Lew; she set her focus not in the minds, but in the living bodies of the Keepers. But her power was fading. Now she could not project her own form upon their bodies; she could only control their minds. And even that power was waning now. She would have done anything for a new source of power…”

  Dio gasped, then pulled herself together a little.

  “I was to be Keeper — I could sense it, a little, how horrible it was, what she wanted. I begged Lerrys to take me away to Vainwal. Why do you think I threw myself at you? I came to love you, but at first, I only wanted to be unfit for her!” Even her hands burned on mine.

  “So it was Callina. But — sometimes Ashara had to withdraw, or Callina would have burnt out. Then Callina was normal, or else she was in trance. When I knew that Regis would have to use the Sword, I — went to the Tower, and smashed one of the crystals. That trapped Ashara for a little while. I had been trained a little, when they thought I was to be the Keeper, and I knew what to do, but I couldn’t do it in my own body, because—” Again her cheeks flooded with color. “Callina, at least, was a virgin. Callina was in trance, and the Terrans had drugged her. So I went to Regis, and he used his Gift, and — and switched me into Callina’s body. It was I who linked with you and Regis.”

  “No,” I gasped, “No, it was Callina, Callina—”

  Dio pressed herself to me, her arms around my neck. “No, my darling, no, Callina could not have linked in’ focus with you. She had not enough independent mind left. Lew, remember — you had never touched my mind, you gave me a barrier against you. And I knew that when it broke, we’d all be too overloaded to know whether I was Callina, or Dio, or someone else. And after that, the barriers were up again. But — darling — see?”

  Suddenly she reached for me and went into complete rapport again. The familiar solace, sweetness, the cool and delicate warmth. “Callina!” I breathed.

  No. This is the part of me you never knew…

  Even now the rapport was too intimate to hold for long.

  “In the old days. Lew — before you left Darkover — Callina was a lovely girl, sweet and generous and brave. You know that. She risked her life for you. But Lew, the real

  Callina died when Ashara took her. Days ago. She was already only a shell of herself, but oh, Lew, the bravery, the wonderful bravery of that poor, poor girl!” Dio,was sobbing like a child. “Lew, she loved you. She refused rapport with you — before Ashara — because she knew it would have given Ashara a foothold in your brain and body, too. With her last spark of will, she saved you from that-and it was the last thing she ever did. It was her death — her real death. You thought Ashara disappeared? No; she had only overshadowed Callina. You thought Callina acted strangely on Festival Night? No. She was only—”

  “Don’t, don’t tell me any more!” I begged.

  “Only one thing more.” She touched the still?discolored bruise on her cheek. “Why do you think I didn’t try to stop Dyan — warn Callina against Derik? Lew, it was a desperate chance, but if they’d succeeded, it would have played into our hands. If a man — any man — had taken Callina, even in rape, so soon after Ashara had taken over her body, it would have caused enough disruption to drive Ashara out. It might have killed Callina, but there was a bare chance that it would have freed her, instead. Ashara would have had to withdraw, not for a few minutes, but permanently.”

  “Don’t!” I implored, sick with horror.

  “I tried to save Callina myself—” Dio broke off. “Oh, Lew, didn’t it mean anything that Callina came to you that night, and slept in your arms? Callina was in trance, and I — I knew Ashara could drive me out of her body any minute, but I knew you wanted Callina, and I hoped—”

  “Oh, Dio!” In spite of my horror, I began weakly to laugh; the first step of the long healing. “Dio, my darling love, don’t you ever look in a mirror? By the time you reached my rooms, it was you again — in your own body! And Callina would have known I could not—” Suddenly, violently, I caught her to me, kissing the flaxen hair and the wet face. “Darling, darling, I’m going to have to explain a lot of things to you about matrices and the men who work with them!”

  Crying and laughing at once, she raised her eyes. “But if it was me, me myself — then — Lew, you love,me?”

  Over her head my eyes blurred. Callina!

  Her gray-green eyes, shorn forever of mischief, met mine tenderly. “I’m not Callina any more,” she said gravely, “but I’m not Ashara either. I think you’re cured, Lew. If not, I too am damned.”

  I kissed her, and it was” an exorcism for the past and an oath for the future. But I shut my eyes to the rising sun over her shoulder, knowing that forever I would walk with doubt, and face the sun with troubled eyes.

  Abruptly the dawn was shattered with a burst of noise; Rafe and Regis ran into the courtyard.

  “Lew,” Rafe shouted harshly. “Come quickly! They’ve found Marja, alive!”

  I let Dio go. Regis said, breathlessly, “Dyan had her under the matrix, and it blanked her like death; so he hid her the one place on Darkover where we would never look! When the matrix smashed, she went into shock, but there’s a bare chance—”

  Rafe grabbed my arm. “We’ve got a rocket-car.”

  We all crowded in, Rafe driving. The jets roared and we jerked back wildly as it screamed through a long curve and rammed back along the roadway not meant for these Terran inventions, horses and people fleeing in panic as we raced through the streets of Thendara.

  Regis shouted, “When she collapse
d, they called the Medical service at the HQ, and Lawton—”

  Lawton, I thought, must be raving crazy by now, with first Thyra, then Kadarin, then Callina — Callina? and me disappearing. But I could not worry about him now. We roared into the Terran Zone. The streets were wider here, and the jets screamed as we slammed around corners still lighted with the neons of the night. We swept, in a wild slipstream of noise, into open country, and only minutes later we shrilled to a bone-shaking stop.

  The sign read: The Reade Orphange For The Children Of Spacemen.

  Rafe banged on the door and a tall woman, prim-faced, in Terran garments, looked out at us. Rafe demanded, “Where is Marguerhia Kadarin?”

  “Captain Scott? How did you know? Your niece is very ill; we were going to send for her guardian. Where is he?”

  “You can’t,” I cut in. “He’s dead. The child’s in shock. I’m a matrix tech, lady; let me in.”

  Her eyes narrowed with suspicion and dislike at my crumpled Terran clothing, put on days £go to ride to the rhu fead; bloodstained; my unshaven face, my mutilated arm. “I’m afraid I must say — no visitors.”

  Another female voice interrupted. “Miss Tabor, can you keep the hallway quiet? Remember we have a very sick child—” She broke off, looking at the four of us. Only Rafe was presentable. “Who are these people?”

  “I’m Marja’s father,” I begged. “Believe me, every second we stand here, we’re losing what little chance—” Suddenly, with almost a prayer of thanks, I remembered the Terran cert card I had stuck into the pocket of this suit; the day I came to Darkover. I dived into the pocket. “Here. This will identify me.”

  She barely glanced at the plastic chip. “Come along,” she said, and led me along the hallway. “We had to take her out of the dormitory. The other girls were frightened.”

  The room was small and clean and full of sunlight. Marja was lying in a high-sided crib, and Dr. Forth, from the Terran HQ, raised his head as I walked in.