I jerked away from him as if he had been a cold corpse. I tried to meet Marjorie's eyes. Together we might master him . . .
"It's no use, Lew. I cannot fight you and keep threatening you all the way to Aldaran," Kadarin said tonelessly. He reached into a pocket, brought out a small red vial, uncapped it. "Drink this. And don't waste time."~
"No?"
"I said drink it. Quickly. If you contrive to spill it, I shall have no recourse except to tear off your matrices; first Marjorie's, then yours. I shall not threaten again."
Glancing at those inhuman eyes?Gods! This man had been my friend! Did he even know what he had become??I knew we were both defenseless in his hands. Defeated, I raised the flask to my lips and swallowed the red liquid.
The helicopter, the world slid away.
And did not return.
I did not know then, what drug he had given me. I am still not entirely sure. Nor have I ever known how much of what I remember from the next few days is dream and how much is underlaid by some curious core of reality.
For a long time I saw nothing but fire. Forest fire raging in the hills beyond Armida; fire raining down on Caer Donn; the great form of fire, stretching out irresistible arms and breaking the walls of Storn Castle as if they had been made of dough. Fire burning in my own veins, raging In my very blood.
I stood, once, on the highest point of Castle Aldaran and looked down on a hundred assembled men and felt the fire blazing behind me, sweeping through me with its wild lust and terror. I felt the men's raw emotions surging up to where
I stood, the Sharra sword between my hands, feeding my nerves with crude fear, lust, greed. . . .
Again, a terrified child, I stood between my father's hands, docilely awaiting the touch that could give me my heritage or my death. I felt the fury rising in me, raving hi me, and I let the fire take him. He went up in flames, burning, burning....
I saw Regis Hastur, lying in a small dark hut somewhere on the road between Aldaran and Thendara, and knew he had failed. He lay there dying, his body torn with the last dying convulsions, unable to cross that dark threshold, fafled, dying, burning....
I felt Dyan Ardais seize me from behind, felt my arm snap in his hands, felt through his touch the combined cruelty and lust. I turned on him and rained hatred and violence on him, too, and saw him go up under the flame of my hatred, burning, burning....
Once I heard Marjorie crying helplessly and fought up to consciousness again, and then I was in my room in Castle Aldaran, but I was tied down with enormous weights. Someone wedged my jaws open and poured down another dose of the pungent red drug, and I began to lose myself again in the dreams that were not dreams.
I stood atop a great flight of stab's, leading down and down and down forever into a great burning pit of hell, and Marjorie stood before me with the Sharra matrix between her hands and her face white and empty, and the matrix gripped in my hands burned me like fire, burned through my hand. Down below, the faces of the men, upturned to me, poured wave upon wave of raw emotion through me again, so that I burned endlessly in a hell-fire of fury and lust, bum-nig, burning....
Once I heard Thyra crying out "No, no, I can't, I won't,** and a terrible sound of weeping. Even at the deathbed of her father she had not wept like this....
And then without transition Marjorie was there in my arms and I threw myself on her as I had done before. I covered her with frenzied and despairing kisses; I plunged gratefully into her warmth, my body and the very blood in my veins, burning, burning, trying in a single act to slake the frenzy of rage and lust which had tormented me, helpless, for days, months, years, eternities.... I tried to stop myself, feeling that there was some dimension of reality to this which had not been in most of the other dreams or illusions. I tried to
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cry out, it was happening again, the thing I feared and I hated, the thing I desired ... the thing I dared not see?I was responsible, personally responsible for all this cruelty and violence! It was my own hate, never acknowledged, never admitted, which they were using, channeling through me! I was powerless to stop myself now; a world of frenzy was shaking me, endlessly tearing at me with great claws. Marjorie was crying helplessly, hopelessly, and I could feel her fear and pain burning in me, burning, burning.... Lightning ripped through my body, thunder crashing inside and out, a world of lust and fury was pouring through my loins . .. burning, burning. ...
I was alone. I lay spent, drained, still confused with the dreams. I was alone. Where was Marjorie? Not here, thanks to all the Gods, not here, not here! None of it had been real.
My mind and body at peace, I slept, but far away in the blackness, someone was crying....
Chapter TWENTY-THREE
"It's not threshold sickness this time, bredu," Regis said, raising his head from the matrix. "This time I'm doing it right, but I can't see anything but the ... the image that struck me down on the northward road. The fire and the golden image. Sharra."
Danilo said, shuddering, "I know. I saw it too.** "At least it didn't strike me senseless this time." Regis covered the matrix. It roused no sickness in him now, just an overwhelming sense of heightened perception. He should have been able to reach Kennard, or someone at Arilinn, but there was nothing?nothing but the great, burning, chained image he knew to be Sharra.
Yes, something terrible was happening hi the hills. Danilo said, "I'd think every telepath on Darkover must know it by now, Regis. Don't they keep a lookout for such things in the towers? No need for you to feel guilty because I you can't do it alone, without training." I "I don't feel exactly guOty, but I am dreadfully worried. I * tried to reach Lew, too. And couldn't."
"Maybe he's safe at Arilinn, behind their force-field.** Regis wished he could think so. His head was clear and he knew the sickness would not return, but the reappearance of the image of Sharra troubled him deeply. He had heard stories of out-of-control matrices, most of them from the Ages of Chaos, but some more recent. A cloud covered the sun and he shivered with cold.
Danflo said, "I think we should ride on, if youVe finished.** "Finished? I didn't even start," he said ruefully, tucking the matrix into his pocket again. "We'll go on, but let me eat something first." He accepted the chunk of dried meat Danilo handed him and sat chewing it. They were sitting side by side
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on a fallen tree, their horses cropping grass nearby through the melting snow. "How long have we been on the road, Dani? I lost count while I was sick."
"Six days, I think. We aren't more than a few days from Thendara. Perhaps tonight we'll be within the outskirts of the Armida lands and I can send word somehow to my father. Lew told Beltran's men to send word, but I don't trust him to have done it."
"Grandfather always regarded Lord Kermiac as an honorable man. Beltran is a strange cub to come from such a dea."
"He may have been decent enough until he fell into the hands of Sharra," Danilo said. "Or perhaps Kermiac ruled too long. I've heard that the land which lives too long under the rule of old men grows desperate for change at any cost."
Regis wondered what would happen in the Domains when his grandfather's regency ended, when Prince Derik Elhalyn took his crown. Would his people have grown desperate for change at any cost? He was remembering the Comyn Council where he and Danilo had stood watching the struggle for power. They would not be watching, then, they would be part of it. Was power always evil, always corrupt?
Dani said, as though he knew Regis' thoughts, "But Beltran didn't just want power to change things, he wanted a whole world to play with."
Regis was startled at the clarity of that and pleased again to think that, if the fate of their world ever depended on the Hasturs, he would have someone like Dani to help him with decisions! He reached out, gave Danflo's hand a brief, strong squeeze. All he said was, "Let's get the horses saddled, then. Maybe we
can help make sure he doesn't get it to play with.1*
They were about to mount when they heard a faint droning, which grew to a sky-filling roar. Danilo glanced up; without a word, he and Regis drew and the horses under the cover of the trees. But the helicopter, moving steadily overhead, paid no attention to them.
"Nothing to do with us," said Danilo when it was out of sight, "probably some business of the Terrans." He let out his breath and laughed, almost in apology. "I shall never hear one again without fear!"
"Just the same, a day will come when we'll have to use them too," Regis said slowly. "Maybe the Aldaran lands and the Domains would understand each other better if it were not ten days' ride from Thendara to Caer Donn."
"Maybe." But Regis felt Danilo withdraw, and he said no more. As they rode on, he thought that, like it or not, the Terrans were here and nothing could ever be as it was before they came. What Beltran wanted was not wrong, Regis felt. Only the way he chose to get it. He himself would find a safer way.
He realized, with astonishment and self-disgust, the direction his thoughts were taking. What had he to do with all that?
He had ridden this road from Nevarsin less than a year ago, believing then that he was without laran and free to shrug his heritage aside and go out into space, follow the Terran starships to the far ends of the Empire. He looked up at the face of Liriel, pale-violet in the noonday sky, and thought how no Darkovan had ever set foot even on any of their own moons. His grandfather had pledged to help him go, if Regis still wanted to. He would not break his word.
Two years more, given to the cadets and the Comyn. Then he would be free. Yet an invisible weight seemed to press him down, even as he made plans for freedom.
Danilo drew his horse suddenly to a stop.
"Riders, Lord Regis. On the road ahead."
Regis drew even with him, letting his reins lie loose on his pony's neck. "Should we get off the road?"
"I think not. We are well within the Domains by now; here you are safe, Lord Regis."
Regis lifted his eyebrows at the formal tone, suddenly realizing its import. In the isolation of the last days, in stress and extremity, all man-made barriers had fallen; they were two boys the same age, friends, bredin. Now, in the Domains and before outsiders once again, he was the heir to Hastur, Danilo his paxman. He smiled a little ruefully, accepting the necessity of this, and let Danilo ride a few paces ahead. Looking at his friend's back, he thought with a strange shiver that it was literally true, not just a word: Dani would die for him.
It was a terrifying thought, though it should not have been so strange. He knew perfectly well that any one of the Guardsmen who had escorted him here and there when he was only a sickly little boy, or ridden with him to and from Nevarsin, were sworn by many oaths to protect him with their lives. But it had never been entirely real to him until Danilo, of his free will and from love, had given him that
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pledge. He rode steadily, with the trained control he had been taught, but his back was alive with prickles and he felt the very hairs rise on his forearms. Was this what it meant, to be Hastur?
He could see the riders now. The first few wore the green-and-black uniform he had worn himself in the past summer. Comyn Guardsmen! And a whole group of others, not in uniform. But there were no banners, DO displays. This was a party of war. Or, at least, one prepared to fight!
Ordinary travelers would have drawn off the road, letting the Guardsmen pass. Instead Regis and Danilo rode straight toward them at a steady pace. The head Guardsman?Regis recognized him now, the young officer Hjalmar?lowered his pike and gave formal challenge.
"Who rides in the Domains?" He broke off, forgetting the proper words. "Lord Regis!"
Gabriel Lanart-Hastur rode quickly past him, bringing his horse up beside Regis. He reached both hands to him. "Praise to the Lord of Light, you are safe! Javanne has been mad with fear for you!"
Regis realized that Gabriel would have been blamed for letting him ride off alone. He owed him an apology. There was no time for it now. The riders surrounded them and he noted many members of the Comyn Council among Guardsmen and others he did not recognize. At the head of them, on a great gray horse, rode Dyan Ardais. His stern, proud face relaxed a little as he saw Regis, and he said in his harsh but musical voice, "You have given us all a fright, kinsman. We feared you dead or prisoner somewhere in the hills." His eyes fell on Danilo and his face stiffened, but he said steadily, "Dom Syrtis, word came from Thendara, sent by the Terrans and brought to us; a message was sent to your father, sir, that you were alive and well."
Danilo inclined his head, saying with frigid formality, "I am grateful, Lord Ardais." Regis could tell how hard the civil words came. He looked at Dyan with faint curiosity, surprised at the prompt delivery of the reassuring message, wondering why, at least, Dyan had not left it to a subordinate to give. Then he knew the answer. Dyan was hi charge of this mission, and would consider it his duty.
Whatever his personal faults and struggles, Regis knew, Dyan's allegiance to Comyn came first. Whatever he did, everything was subordinate to that. It had probably never oc-
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curred to Dyan that his private life could affect the honor of the Comyn. It was an unwelcome thought and Regis tried to reject it, but it was there nevertheless. And, even more disquieting, the thought that if Danilo had been a private citizen and not a cadet, it genuinely would not have mattered how Dyan treated or mistreated him.
Dyan was evidently waiting for some explanation; Regis said, "Danilo and I were held prisoner at Aldaran. We were freed by Dom Lewis Alton." Lew's formal title had a strange sound in his ears. He did not remember using it before.
Dyan turned his head, and Regis saw the horse-litter at the center of the column. His grandfather? Traveling at this season? Then, with the curiously extended senses he was just beginning to learn how to use, he knew it was Kennard, even before Dyan spoke.
"Your son is safe, Kennard. A traitor, perhaps, but safe."
"He is no traitor," Regis protested. "He too was held a prisoner. He freed us in his own escape." He held back the knowledge that Lew had been tortured, but Kennard knew it anyway: Regis could not yet barricade himself properly.
Kennard put aside the leather curtains. He said, "Word came from Arilinn?you know what is going on at Aldaran? The raising of Sharra?"
Regis saw that Kennard's hands were still swollen, his body bent and bowed. He said, "I am sorry to see you too ill to ride, Uncle." In his mind, the sharpest of pains, was the memory of Kennard as he had been during those early years at Armida, as Regis had seen him in the gray world. Tall and straight and strong, breaking his own horses for the pleasure of it, directing the men on the fire-lines with the wisdom of the best of commanders and working as hard as any of them. Unshed tears stung Regis' eyes for the man who was closest to a father to him. His emotions were swimming near the surface these days, and he wanted to weep for Kennard's suffering. But he controlled himself, bowing from his horse over his kinsman's crippled hand.
Kennard said, "Lew and I parted with harsh words, but I could not believe him traitor. I do not want war with Lord Kermiac?"
"Lord Kermiac is dead, Uncle. Lew was an honored guest to him. After his death, though, Beltran and Lew quarreled. Lew refused . . ." Quietly, riding beside Kennard's litter, Regis told him everything he knew of Sharra, up to the mo-
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ment when Lew had pleaded with Beltran to renounce his intention, and promising to enlist the help of Comyn Council ... and how Beltran had treated them all afterward. Ken-nard's eyes closed in pain when Regis told of how Kadarin had brutally beaten his son, but it would not have occurred to Regis to spare him. Kennard was a telepath, too.
When he ended, telling Kennard how Lew had freed them with Marjorie's aid, Kennard nodded grimly. "We had hoped Sharra was laid forever in the keeping of the fo
rge-folk. While it was safely at rest, we would not deprive them of their goddess."
"A piece of sentiment likely to cost us dear," Dyan said. "The boy seems to have behaved with more courage than I had believed he had. Now the question is, what's to be done?"
"You said that word came from Arilinn, Uncle. Lew is safe there, then?"
"He is not at Arilinn, and the Keeper there, seeking, could not find him. I fear he has been recaptured. Word came, saying only that Sharra had been raised and was raging in the Hellers. We gathered every telepath we could find outside the towers, in the hope that somehow we could control it. Nothing less could have brought me out now," he added, with a detached glance at his crippled hands and feet, "but I am tower-trained and probably know more of matrix work than anyone not actually inside a tower."
Regis, riding at his side, wondered if Kennard was strong enough. Could he actually face Sharra?
Kennard answered his unspoken words. "I don't know, son," he said aloud, "but I'm going to have to try. I only hope I need not face Lew, if he has been forced into Sharra again. He is my son, and I do not want to face him as an enemy," His face hardened with determination and grief. "But I will if I must." And Regis heard the unspoken part of that, too: Even if I must kill him this time.
Chapter TWENTY-FOUR
(Lew Alton's narrative concluded)
To this day I have never known or been able to guess how long I was kept under the drug Kadarin had forced on me. There was no period of transition, no time of incomplete focus. One day my head suddenly cleared and I found myself sitting in a chair in the guest suite at Aldaran, calmly putting on my boots. One boot was on and one was off, but I had no memory of having put on the first, or what I had been doing before that
I raised my hands slowly to my face. The last clear memory I had was of swallowing the drug Kadarin had given me. Everything after that had been dreamlike, hallucinatory quasi-memories of hatred and lust, fire and frenzy. I knew time had elapsed but I had no idea how much. When I swallowed the drug, my face had been bleeding after Kadarin had ripped it to ribbons with his heavy fists. Now my face was tender, with raised welts still sore and painful, but all the wounds were closed and healing. A sharp pain in my right hand, where I bore the long-healed matrix burn from my first year at Arilinn, made me flinch and turn the hand over. I looked, without understanding, at the palm. For three years and more, it had been a coin-sized white scar, a small ugly puckered patch with a couple of scarred seams at either side. That was what it had been.
Now?I stared, absolutely without comprehension. The white patch was gone, or rather, it had been replaced by a raw, red, festering burn half the breadth of my palm. It hurt like hell.