Strange heretical thoughts to be thinking in the very center of the ancient science. When their forefathers forbade that very thing, they must have had their reasons!
Margwenn Elhalyn was a slim fair-haired woman of unguessable age, though Damon thought she was a little older than he was himself. She had the cold withdrawnness, the almost hieratic decorum, of all Keepers. “The Mother Ashara cannot see you, her mind sojourns elsewhere much of the time in these days. How may I serve you, Damon?”
Damon hesitated, unwilling to explain his errand and charge Dezi, without proof, of what he suspected. Margwenn had not attended the Council, though she had every right to do so. Many technicians were not interested in politics. Damon had once felt that way himself, that his work was above such base considerations. Now he was not so sure.
Finally he said, “Some confusion has arisen about the whereabouts of certain matrices in the hands of the Alton clan, legitimately issued, but their fate uncertain. Are you familiar with Dezi Leynier, who was admitted to Arilinn for something under a year, some time ago?”
“Dezi?” she said without interest. “Some bastard of Lord Alton’s, wasn’t he? Yes, I remember. He was dismissed because he could not keep discipline, I heard.” She went to the monitor screen, standing motionless before the glassy surface. After a little time lights began to wink, deep inside it, and Damon, watching her face without attempting to follow her in thought, knew she was linked into the relay to Arilinn. Finally she said, “Evidently he has given up his matrix. It is in the hands of a Keeper, not inactivated, but at a very low level.”
In the hands of a Keeper. Damon, who had himself lowered its level and put it into a locked and sealed box, metal-bound and tamperproof, understood that perfectly well.
Hands of a Keeper. But any competent technician could do a Keeper’s work. Why should it be surrounded with taboo, ritual, superstitious reverence? Concealing his thoughts from Margwenn, he said, “Now can you check what has become of the matrix of Domenic Lanart?”
“I will try,” she said, “but I thought he was dead. His matrix would have died with him, probably.”
“I had thought so too,” Damon said, “but it was not found on his body. Is it possible that it is also in the hands of a Keeper?”
Margwenn shrugged. “That seems unlikely, although I suppose, knowing Domenic unlikely to use laran, she might have reclaimed it and modified it to another’s use, or to her own. Although most Keepers prefer to begin with a blank crystal. Where was he tested? Not at Arilinn, surely.”
“Neskaya, I think.”
Margwenn raised her eyebrows as she went to the screen. It took no telepathic subtlety to follow her thought: At Neskaya they are likely to do anything. At last Margwenn turned and said, “Your guess is right, it is in the hands of a Keeper, though it is not in Neskaya. It must have been modified and given to another. It did not die with Domenic, but is fully operative.”
And there it was, Damon thought, his heart sinking. A small thing for positive proof of a cold-blooded, fiendish murder.
Not premeditated. There was that small comfort. No one alive could have foreseen that Cathal would strike Domenic unconscious as they practiced. But a sudden temptation… and Domenic’s matrix survived him, to point unerringly to the one person who could have taken it from his body without himself being killed by it.
Gods above, what a waste! Had Dom Esteban been able to overcome his pride, admit to the somewhat shameful circumstances of Dezi’s begetting, had he been willing to acknowledge this gifted youngster, Dezi would never have come to this.
Damon thought, with wrenching empathy that the temptation must have been sudden, and irresistible. For a trained telepath being without a matrix was like being deaf, blind, mutilated, and the sight of the unconscious Domenic had spurred him on to murder. Murder of the one brother who had championed his right to be called brother, who had been his patron and friend.
“Damon, what ails you?” Margwenn was staring at him in amazement. “Are you ill, kinsman?”
He made some civil excuse, thanked her for her help, and went away. She would know soon enough. Zandru’s hells, there would be no way to hide this! All the Comyn would soon know, and everyone in Thendara! What scandal for the Altons!
Back in their rooms, his drawn face told Ellemir the truth at once. “It’s true, then. Merciful Avarra, what will this do to our father? He loved Dezi. Domenic loved him too.”
“I wish I could spare him the knowledge,” Damon said wretchedly. “You know why I cannot, Elli.”
Callista said, “When Father knows the truth, there will be another murder, that is sure!”
“He loves the boy, he spared him before,” Andrew protested. Callista pressed her lips tightly together.
“True. But when I was a little girl Father had a favorite hound. He had reared it by hand from a puppy and it slept on his bed at night, and lay at his feet in the Great Hall. When it grew to be an old dog, however, it became vicious. It took to killing animals in the yards, and once it bit Dorian and drew blood. The coridom said it must be destroyed, but he knew how Father loved the old dog, and offered to have it quietly made away with. But Father said, ‘No, this is my affair.’ He went out into the stables, called the brute to him, and when it came he broke its neck with his own hands.” She was silent, thinking of how her Father had cried afterward, the only time she ever saw him weep, except when Coryn died.
But he did not ever shrink from doing what he must.
Damon knew she was right. He might have preferred to spare his father-in-law, but Esteban Lanart was Lord Alton, with wardship, even to life and death, over every man, woman, and child in the Alton Domains. He had never dealt out justice unfairly, but he had never failed to deal it out.
“Come,” he said to Andrew, “we must lay it before him.” But when Callista rose to follow them, he shook his head.
“Breda, this is an affair for men.”
She turned pale with anger. “You dare speak so to me, Damon? Domenic was my brother, so is Dezi. I am an Alton!”
“And I,” said Ellemir, “and my child is next heir after Valdir!”
As they turned to the door, Damon found a snatch of song running in his head, incongruous, with a sweet, mournful memory. After a moment he identified it as the song Callista had begun to sing, and had been rebuked:
How came this blood on your right hand,
Brother, tell me, tell me…
It is the blood of my own brothers twain
Who sat at the drink with me.
Ellemir had spoken more truly than she knew: It was ill-luck for a sister to sing that song in a brother’s hearing. But, looking at the women, Damon thought that like the sister in the old ballad, who had condemned the brotherslayer to outlawry, they would not shrink from the sentence.
It was only a few steps into another part of the suite, but to Damon it seemed a long journey, across a gulf of misery, before they stood before Dom Esteban, who looked at them in bewilderment.
“What means this? Why are you all so solemn? Callista, what is wrong with you, chiya? Elli, have you been crying?”
“Father.” said Callista, white as death, “where is Valdir? And is Dezi near?”
“They are together, I hope. I know you have a grudge against him, Damon,” he said, “but after all, the lad has right on his side. I should have done years ago what I propose to do now. He is not old enough to be regent of the Domain, of course, or Valdir’s guardian, the idea is preposterous, but once acknowledged he will see reason. And then he will be such a brother to Valdir as he was to my poor Domenic.”
“Father,” Ellemir said in a low voice, “that is what we fear.”
He turned to her in anger. “I thought you, at least, would show a sister’s forebearance, Ellemir!” Then he met the eyes of Damon and Andrew, fixed steadily on him. He looked from one to the other and back again, in growing distress and annoyance.
“How dare you!” Then, impatiently, he reached out for conta
ct, read directly from them what they knew. Damon felt the knowledge sink into the old man’s mind in one great surge of pain. It was like death, a blinding moment of physical agony. He felt the old man’s last thought: My heart, my heart is surely breaking. I thought that was only an idle word, but I feel it there, before he slipped into merciful unconsciousness. Andrew, moving swiftly, caught the limp body in his arms as he pitched out of his wheeled chair.
Too shocked to think clearly, he laid him on his bed. Damon was still paralyzed with the backlash of the Alton lord’s pain.
“I think he’s dead,” Andrew said, shocked, but Callista came and felt his pulse, laid her ear briefly against his chest. “No, the heart still beats. Quickly, Ellemir! Run and fetch Ferrika, she is nearest, but one of you men must go down to the Guard Hall and search for Master Nicol.”
She waited beside her father, remembering that Ferrika had warned her about his weakening heart. When the woman came, she confirmed Callista’s fear.
“Something has gone wrong in the heart, Callista.” In her sympathy she forgot the formal “my lady,” remembering that they had played together as children. “He has had too many shocks to endure.” She brought stimulant drugs and when Master Nicol came, between them they managed to get a dose into him.
“It’s touch and go,” the hospital officer warned. “He might die at any moment, or linger like this till Midsummer. Has he had a shock? With respect, Lord Damon, he should have been guarded from the slightest stress or bad news.”
Damon felt like demanding how do you guarded a telepath against evil news. But Master Nicol was doing his best, and he would have had no more answer than Damon himself.
“We will do what we can, Lord Damon, but for now… it is fortunate he had already chosen you regent.”
It was like a flood of ice water. He was regent of Alton, with wardship and sovereignty over the Domain, till Valdir was declared a man.
Regent. With power of life and death.
No, he thought, flinching with revulsion. It was too much. He did not want it.
But looking down at the stricken old man, he knew that duty lay on him. Confronted with proof of Dezi’s treachery, the Alton lord would have acted unflinchingly to protect the children, young boy and unborn babe, who were the next heirs to Alton. As Damon must act…
When Dezi came back with Valdir, he found them all waiting for him.
“Valdir,” said Ellemir gently, “our father lies very ill. Go and find Ferrika and ask news of him.” To their great relief, the child ran off at once, and Dezi stood waiting, defiant.
“So now you have your will, Damon. You are regent of Alton. Or are you? I wonder.”
Damon found his voice. “I am warned, Dezi. You cannot serve me as you served Domenic. As regent of Alton I demand that you give up to me the matrix you stole from Domenic’s body.”
He saw comprehension sweep over Dezi’s face. Then, to Damon’s horror, he laughed. Damon thought he had never heard a sound so shocking as that laughter.
“Come and take it, you Ridenow half-man,” he taunted. “You will not find it so easy this time! You could not take me that way now, even with your Nest about you!” Damon flinched at the ancient obscenity, for the women’s sake. “Come, I called you challenge in Council, let us have it here and now! Which of us is to be regent of Alton? Have you that much strength? Half monk, half eunuch, they call you!”
Damon knew he had picked up the taunt from Lorenz, or was it from Damon himself? He found his voice. “If you kill me, you prove yourself even less fit to be regent. It is not strength alone, but right and responsibility.”
“Oh, have done with that cant!” Dezi scoffed. “Such responsibility, I suppose, as my loving father took for me?”
Damon wanted to say that the dom had truly loved Dezi enough for his treachery almost to kill him too. But he wasted no words, grasping his own matrix, focusing, striking to alter the resonances of the one Dezi wore. Had stolen.
Dezi felt the touch, struck out a blinding mental blow. Damon went physically to his knees before the impact. Dezi had the Alton gift, the anger which could kill. Fighting panic, he realized that Dezi had grown, was stronger. Like a wolf with a taste for man’s flesh, he had to be destroyed at once, lest this ravening beast get among the Comyn…
The room began to cloud, thicken with swirling lines of force between them. He felt himself falter, felt Andrew’s strength behind him, even as Andrew was physically holding him upright. Dezi glowed within the fog. He hurled lightnings at the men. Damon felt the ground thinning beneath his feet, felt himself beaten down toward the floor.
Callista stepped between them. She seemed to tower above them all, tall and commanding, her matrix blazing at her throat. Damon saw the matrix in Dezi’s hand glow like a live coal, felt it burn through his tunic and into his flesh. Dezi yelled in pain and rage, and for an instant Damon saw Callista as she had been in Arilinn, flickering with the crimson of a Keeper’s robes. With the small dagger she wore at her waist she struck at the thong about Dezi’s throat. The matrix fell to the floor, blazed like fire when Dezi grabbed for it. Damon felt with Dezi the flare of agony as Dezi’s hand began to burn in the flame. The matrix rolled to one side, a useless black dead thing.
And Dezi disappeared! Andrew, for a fraction of a second, watched the place where Dezi had vanished, the air still trembling behind him. Then it rang in all their minds, a terrible dying scream of despair and rage. And they saw it, as if they had been physically present in that room at Armida.
When Callista had destroyed Domenic’s stolen matrix, Dezi could not face being without one again. With his last strength he had teleported himself through the overworld, to materialize at that place where Damon had placed his own for safekeeping—a panic reaction, without rational thought. A moment of considering would have told him it was safely locked away inside a solid, metal-bound strongbox. Two solid objects could not occupy the same space at the same time, not in the solid universe. And Dezi—they all saw it and shuddered with horror—had materialized half in, half out of the box holding the matrix. And even before that despairing dying scream died away, they had all heard the echo in Damon’s mind. Dezi lay on the floor of the strong-room at Armida, very completely and very messily dead. Even through his horror Damon found a moment to pity whoever would have to deal with that dreadfully materialized corpse, half in and half out of a solidly locked strongbox which had split his skull like a piece of rotten fruit.
Ellemir had sunk to the floor, moaning with shock and dread. Andrew’s first thought was for her. He hurried to her, holding her, trying to pour his strength into her as he had poured it into Damon. Damon slowly picked himself up, staring into nowhere. Callista was staring at her matrix, in horror.
“Now I am truly forsworn…” she whispered. “I had given back my oath… and I used it to kill…” She began to scream wildly, beating at herself with her fists, tearing at her face with her nails. Andrew thrust Ellemir gently into a low chair, ran to Callista. He tried to grasp her flailing arms. There was a shower of blue sparks and he landed, stunned, against the opposite wall. Callista, looking at him, her eyes wide and half mad with horror, shrieked again, and her nails ripped down her cheeks, blood following them in a thin, scarlet line.
Damon sprang forward. He grasped her wrists in one hand, held the struggling, screaming woman immobile, and with his open hand slapped her, hard, across the face. The screams died in a gasp. She slumped and he held her upright, cradling her head on his shoulder.
Callista began to sob. “I had given back my oath,” she whispered. “I could not refrain… I moved against him as Keeper. Damon, I am still Keeper despite my oath… my oath!”
“Damn your oath!” said Damon, and shook her. “Callista! Stop that! Don’t you even know you saved all our lives?”
She stopped crying, but her face, ghastly with streaked blood and tears, was drawn into a mask of horror. “I am forsworn. I am forsworn.”
“We’re all forsworn,” Dam
on said. “It’s too late for that! Damn it, Callie, pull yourself together! I have to see if that bastard has managed to kill your father too. And Ellemir—” His breath caught in his throat. Shocked into compliance, Callista went quickly to where Ellemir lay motionless in the chair.
After a moment she raised her head. “I do not think the child has suffered. Go, Damon, and see if all is well with our father.”
Damon moved toward the other rooms of the suite. But he knew without moving that Dom Esteban was so near death that nature had provided its own shield. He had been spared all knowledge of that battle to the death. Damon, however, needed a moment alone, to come to terms with this new knowledge.
Without thought, he had moved against a Keeper, an Alton, had moved, automatically, to shake her out of her hysteria, to take the full responsibility.
It is I who am Keeper of these four. Whatever we may do, it is on my responsibility.
Before long, he knew, he would be called to account for what he had done. Every telepath from Dalereuth to the Hellers must have witnessed that death.
And already he had alerted them to what was happening among the four of them, when with Andrew and Dezi he had built that landmark in the overworld, to heal the frostbitten men. Sorrow gnawed at him again, for the boy so terribly and tragically dead. Aldones, Lord of Light… Dezi, Dezi, what a waste, what a tragic waste of all his gifts…
But even sorrow gave way to the knowledge of what he had done, and what he had become.