Rafe’s voice said a careless “Come in,” as Regis knocked; as he entered, Rafe started up from his chair. “Regis!” Then he broke off. “Forgive me. Lord Hastur—”
“Regis will do, Rafe,” Regis said. After all, they had been boys together. “And forget that formal little speech about why am I honoring your house.” A grin flickered on Rafe’s face, and he gestured Regis to a seat. Regis took it, looking about him curiously; in his many visits to the Terran Zone he had never before been inside a private dwelling, but only in public places. To him the furniture seemed coarse, ill-made and badly arranged, comfortless. Of course, these were the bachelor quarters of an unmarried man, without servants or much that was permanent.
“May I offer you refreshment, Regis? Wine? A fruit drink?”
“It’s too early for wine,” Regis said, but realized that he was thirsty from all the talking he had been doing with the Legate. Rafe went to a console, touched controls; a cup of some white smooth artificial material materialized and a stream of pale-gold liquid trickled into it. Rafe handed him the cup, materialized and filled another for himself. He came back and took a seat.
Regis said, sipping at the cool, tart liquid, “I have seen what happened to your matrix. I—” suddenly he did not have the faintest idea how he was going to say this.
“I have discovered—almost by accident—” he fumbled, “that I have some—some curious power over—not over Sharra, just over—matrixes which have been—contaminated—by Sharra. Will you let me try it with yours?”
Rafe made a wry face, “I came here so that I could forget about that,” he said. “It seems strange to hear talk of matrixes here.” He gestured to the bare plastic room.
“You may not be as safe as you think,” Regis warned him soberly, “Kadarin has been seen in the Terran Zone.”
“Where?” Rafe demanded. When Regis told him, he leaned back in his chair, white as death. “I know what he wanted. I must see Lew—” and stopped dead. He fumbled for the matrix round his neck; unwrapped it. He held it out quietly on the palm of his hand. Regis looked fixedly at it, and saw it begin to flame and glow with that frightening evocation, the Form of Fire in both their minds, the reek and terror of a city in flames . . .
He tried to summon memory of what he had done with Javanne’s matrix; found himself, after a brief struggle, wresting the Form of Fire slowly into a shadow, to nothing, a shred. . . .
The matrix stared, blue and innocent, back at them. Rafe drew a noisy breath, color coming slowly into his face again.
“How did you do that?” he demanded.
That was, Regis thought with detachment, an excellent question. It was a pity he did not have an equally excellent answer. “I don’t know. It may have something to do with the Hastur Gift—whatever that is. I suggest you try to use it.”
Rafe looked scared. “I haven’t been able to—even to try—since—” but he did take the crystal between his hands. After a moment a cold globe of light appeared over his joined hands, floated slowly about the room, vanished. He sighed, again. “It seems to be—free—”
Now, perhaps, I can face Lew and do that . . .
Rafe’s eyes widened as he looked at Regis. He whispered, “Son of Hastur—” and bowed, an archaic gesture, bending almost to the ground.
Regis said impatiently, “Never mind that! What is it that you know about Kadarin?”
“I can’t tell you now.” Rafe seemed to be struggling between that archaic reverence and a perfectly ordinary exasperation. “I swear I can’t; it’s something I have to tell Lew first. It—” he hesitated. “It wouldn’t be honorable or right. Do you command me to tell you, Lord Hastur?”
“Of course not,” said Regis, scowling, “but I wish you’d tell me what you’re talking about.”
“I can’t. I have to go—” he stopped and sighed. Then he said, “Beltran is in the city. I do not want to encounter him. May I come to Comyn Castle? I promise, I will explain everything then. It is a—” again the hesitation. “A family matter. Will you ask Lew Alton to meet me in his quarters in the Castle? He—he may not want to see me. I was part of that—part of the Sharra rebellion. But I was his brother’s friend, too. Ask him, for Marius’s sake, if he will speak with me.”
“I’ll ask him,” Regis said, but he felt more puzzled than ever.
When he left the Terran Zone, the Guardsman at his heels drew diffidently level with him and said, “May I ask you a question, Lord Regis?”
“Ask,” Regis said, again annoyed at the archaic deference. I was a cadet under this man; he was an experienced officer when I was still putting the chin-strap on the cinch-ring! Why should he have to ask permission to speak to me?
“Sir, what’s going on in the city? They called all the Guards out for some kind of ceremony—”
Abruptly, Regis remembered; his errand in the Terran Zone had kept him away, and yet this might be called one of the most important days in the history of the Domains. The Seventh Domain of Aldaran was about to be restored with full ceremony to Comyn, and in token of that Beltran was to swear to Compact . . . he should have been there. Not that he trusted Beltran to observe any oath one moment longer than it was to his advantage to do so!
He said, “We’ll go to the city wall; at least you’ll see part of it from there.”
“Thank you, my lord,” the Guard said deferentially.
Inside the city wall there were stairs, so that they could walk atop the broad wall, past posted guards, each of whom saluted Regis as he passed. Spread out below them, he could see the men in Aldaran’s so-called Honor Guard. There must be hundreds of them, he thought, it is really an army, enough army to storm the walls of Thendara . . . he left nothing to our good will.
In a little knot at the head of them, he could see Beltran, and a number of brightly clad cloaked figures; Comyn lords, come to witness this ceremony. Without realizing he was doing it, Regis enhanced his sight with laran, and suddenly it was as if he stood within a few feet of his grandfather, spare and upright in the blue and silver ceremonial cloak of the Hasturs. Edric of Serrais was there too, and Lord Dyan of Ardais, and Prince Derik, and Merryl; and Danilo at Dyan’s side, the two dressed identically in the ceremonials of Ardais; and Merryl in the gray and crimson of Aillards, attending Callina, who stood slightly apart from them, enfolded in her gray cloudy wrap, her face partially veiled as befitted a Comyn lady among strangers.
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 i
n 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 serva 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; but 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 . . .”
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