Lips shaped her name. Marja! Preciosa!
Unable to contain herself, Marguerida rushed toward his outstretched arms. Her body passed through his with only the faintest suggestion of contact, an almost imperceptible crackle of electricity. She whirled around, even as he reached for her again. When her hands touched his, she felt only empty space. They tried several more times, with the same result. Finally, they drew back, gazing at each other across the unbridgeable gap.
For a long time, Marguerida could not speak, caught between frustration and longing. She forced herself to face the truth. She could not hold him, nor he, her. Here in the Overworld, in this manifestation, at least, they were thought, not flesh, insubstantial as ghosts.
Mikhail… She could not bear to be so close, and yet to lose all hope of him.
My Marja. His smile dimmed. Are you dead, too?
I don’t think so. I don’t think either of us is, although I have no idea how to bring us back. The last time I saw you—your physical body, that is—you were still alive, poisoned by Francisco’s dagger, and in a laran stasis field.
Mikhail shook his head, as much a gesture of love as negation. You should not have come looking for me, preciosa. It was too dangerous. But when have you ever listened to sense when someone you love was involved?
I did something rather foolhardy, but necessary, she admitted ruefully. I used my shadow matrix to transform enough of Jeram’s serum to immunize everyone who needs it against the fever, at least I hope so. But I didn’t count on—
Slow down! he said, laughing. What fever? By Jeram, do you mean that poor fellow Francisco was using for his phony charges?
Mikhail could have no way of knowing what happened after the duel…and, she thought, the charges of laran abuse were true, although not in the way Francisco had intended. If she lived, she would eventually have much to sort out.
Briefly she explained how Thendara had been struck by an epidemic of trailmen’s fever and Jeram, the Terran Jeremiah Reed, had used his expertise in infectious disease control to help.
With both of us absent, who is acting as Regent? Mikhail asked. Who rules the Comyn?
Marguerida smiled. Domenic, who else?
Domenic? Astonishment and delight shone through Mikhail’s mental voice.
He’s grown up in an amazing fashion, Marguerida replied. As long as we were pushing him to be responsible—and face it, Mik, we did pressure him with our expectations—he fought us. But when it was his own choice…well, he is as resourceful as his father. He held the Council together, kept everyone from panic, and organized the care of the sick. You would have been so proud of him!
Then we must return immediately, so that I can tell him so. Something in her husband’s words tugged at Marguerida’s heart. She remembered all the years of her own young life when she yearned for her father’s approval.
Marguerida looked down at the ring, still lying in the palm of her hand. Clearly, it was the key to healing Mikhail, but she did not know how to use it.
She held it out to him. Here, take it. Use its healing power to cleanse the poison from your earthly body.
When he reached for the ring, his fingers passed through it, even as they did her own hand. They tried placing the ring on the ground and tossing it through the air before admitting the impossibility. The ring belonged in the same dimension as Marguerida. She herself would have to use it.
Mikhail tried to explain to her how it worked. She did her best to follow his directions, but without any result. She might as well have tried to use his starstone. The crystal was, after all, a type of matrix, keyed to Mikhail’s mind.
Or was it?
Marguerida peered into the faceted brilliance of the crystal. Through it, she could barely make out the shadow matrix on the palm of her other hand. As she watched, the two patterns began to interweave, each enhancing the other, like harmony and counterpoint in music. She heard their combined melodies in her mind.
One love, combined…one love, one heart…
One matrix…
She could not wield the ring, but she could use the shadow matrix embedded in her own flesh, keyed to her own laran. If she channeled her mental power through her shadow matrix, and then through Varzil’s ring…
A ball of coruscating fire burned in her memory. She remembered how it had leaped out from their hands, blinding the attackers at the Battle of Old North Road. Then, their Gifts had been used as a weapon.
Now I need a different sort of weapon. Just as the immune serum changed the particles of the trailmen’s fever virus, now she envisioned a stream of healing laran altering the molecules of poison in Mikhail’s body.
Yes, that just might work!
The transformation would take every scrap of laran she possessed, right down to the dregs, and she knew by now that her Gifts were considerable. What had Lew said, “I would have given anything, done anything to save the one I love”?
Anything to have Mikhail live.
Marguerida reached deep within her mind for her Gift. She found a wellspring of strength, and poured it through the matrix on her hand.
One love, one heart…
One matrix…
One…
She felt the two matrices become attuned to one another. Building on each other’s vibrations, they began to glow even more brightly than before. Crystal fire ignited in their depths. Brighter and stronger they burned, until two spheres of brilliance fused into one.
Marguerida tried to picture Mikhail’s physical body as she had last seen him. He had been lying under a light blanket in the chamber in Comyn Tower, a protective field of laran surrounding him. His face had been pale, his features composed. Even as she attempted to bring the image into focus, it blurred, weak and indistinct, as if viewed through a badly warped lens.
How could she have forgotten the face that was as familiar to her as her own? Had she floated in the Overworld for so long? Had she lost all connection with the physical plane?
During that moment of uncertainty, Marguerida’s concentration faltered. Patches of darkness appeared in the searing brilliance of the joined matrices. They pulsed, red and sluggish, like congested laran nodes. The energies fluctuated, peaking irregularly and falling away.
Marguerida struggled to bring the luminous orb under control, to smooth out the variations. Her efforts were of no use. The sphere was rapidly becoming unstable. In only a few moments, she would not be able to contain its power. She had no idea what would happen then, how much devastation would result. In horror, she realized that once she had lost control of the matrices, she would also destroy the only hope of either of them surviving.
She had built up this nexus of power to be used, but she had nowhere to send it. The power had no mooring, no ties to the physical plane. She had generated it from her own mind, and she was adrift in the Overworld, cut off, even as Domenic had been when she reached him on the night of the Midsummer Ball riot.
Domenic! She had found him, lost and drifting, in the Overworld. What if they were still connected? Could he reach her in the same way?
Nico… she called out to him across the void. Mikhail joined her, his strength flowing effortlessly into hers.
She caught the distant, eager response.
Mother! Father!
Her son’s mental voice echoed weirdly through her thoughts. She could not sustain the contact. She was rapidly losing her ability to concentrate as the shifting energy of the matrices tore and pulled at her.
Hold on! The words formed in her mind.
Nico, where are you?
Here—I am here, in the light.
Marguerida bent her mental focus again on the joined matrices. They no longer radiated unblemished white light. Instead, she looked upon streams of energy, vibrating at many frequencies. Her rational mind understood this was impossible; she could not perceive such harmonics, so far above and below the visible range. Yet her imagination turned the vibrations into a panoply of rainbow lights, shifting from blue-white bril
liance, to the green of tender shoots in spring, the blue of Lake Mariposa on a clear summer’s day, the varying crimson shades of blood and lava and the great Bloody Sun itself, the gold of a sunrise high in the Hellers, the dusky slate of basalt, the pale ivory of Temora sands…
She seemed to be seeing all the colors of Darkover.
Vision shifted into hearing. A symphonic blending of sound spread through her mind, even as she had imagined it when Domenic spoke before the Council…
…the sweet high singing of storm and river, the deep, rumbling groan as massive sheets of crust slowly buckled under unimaginable pressures, the resonant hum of the molten layers beneath…
HOLD ON! Domenic’s mental voice now came through, louder and clearer than ever.
Suddenly Marguerida understood what was happening, why she saw those colors and heard that music. Her son’s unique laran bound him to the planet itself, and he was using his Gift as an anchor in the physical plane, reaching out to her through his mind.
The unending gray of the Overworld faded. She no longer stood upon a chill, featureless plain. Once again, she was floating, but no longer alone. Mikhail was beside her, both of them swept up in a single multicolored sphere. Streams of variegated energy, light and heat, matter and energy, rushed past without touching them.
Suddenly, all sensation of movement ceased. Marguerida blinked as the intense radiance receded. To all sides, gray stone walls emerged, as if from a disappearing mist. Below her, a spot of brightness remained. She found herself floating, looking down on her own body, lying wrapped in a her favorite shawl…in the same room, high in Comyn Tower, where Mikhail lay. People clustered around her. She recognized them, even though she was looking down at the top of their heads. Domenic grasped her left hand in both of his. The mote of brightness issued from their joined hands.
Mik? Are you with me? Can you use the power from the ring now?
No, I cannot. His mental presence was very near, as if he were whispering in her ear. But together we can.
Marguerida gathered up the power from the Overworld matrices. Anchored by the sure, steady contact with Domenic’s laran to the physical plane of Darkover, she and Mikhail became conduits for the ring’s healing energy. It passed through them like silk, like sunshine, like a thundering waterfall.
Power flowed first through the astral form of Mikhail’s body, then settled into his laran-carrying nodes and channels. Deftly, Mikhail shifted the vibration of the energy so that it now infused his every tissue, every fluid, every cell.
Marguerida sensed the minute particles of Francisco’s poison like bits of caustic darkness. As Istvana had said, the toxin had bonded to Mikhail’s bone marrow.
As the healing energy shifted, the composition of the particles altered. They brightened, infinitesimal suns, before fading away. Only healthy marrow tissue remained.
On the bed, Mikhail’s body drew in a deep breath. Already he looked less pale.
Marguerida felt a pulse of reassurance from her husband. To return to the physical plane and their own bodies, they had only to follow the lifeline Domenic had created. Yet Mikhail hesitated, restraining her.
While we are still here in the Overworld, he said, there is one more thing that can be done, if you choose.
What is that? What could be more important than to return to life together?
Mikhail shifted his focus to Marguerida’s left palm, where the shadow matrix still pulsed with power. She had encountered Ashara again, with almost fatal results, because of the device. The ancient Keeper was destroyed, but as long as Marguerida remembered her, there remained the possibility of recreating her.
You can be free of her, Mikhail said, if you leave it here.
Marguerida understood instantly what he meant. The shadow matrix had originally been the keystone, the heart of Ashara’s Tower of Mirrors. With it, Marguerida could recreate Ashara’s Tower…or she could build a new Tower, one never tainted by Ashara’s lust for domination. The Tower as it ought to have been. She could place the shadow matrix at its heart, build its graceful walls with her imagination…and then walk away.
If she had never acquired the shadow matrix, what would have happened at the ambush at Old North Road? Who would have defeated Belfontaine’s forces? Would the Comyn have been wiped out with that single bold attack?
Yes, the shadow matrix came with a heavy responsibility, the burden of constant vigilance…just like the Alton Gift. And just like the Alton Gift, it should never be used lightly.
What had Lew said about the Alton Gift, that it was a weapon when all else had failed? Could she leave her world and everyone she loved without the added defense of her shadow matrix?
For a long moment, she made no answer. She did not need to. Mikhail understood her.
Then let us go home, he whispered, a kiss for her mind.
A sense of completion filled her. Then, with a rush like wings, like the astonishing, swift Darkovan nightfall, the last mote of brilliance faded.
Some time later—an eon, a heartbeat, she could not tell—Marguerida returned to herself. She felt her body, muscle and bone, her left hand clenched around a ring. She lay on a bed in a room in Comyn Tower, the same room she had looked down upon. Someone put an arm around her, steadying her. Someone else, with a Keeper’s cool deft touch, gently opened her fingers and removed the ring.
Sound reached her, people breathing, her father’s voice, too low and hoarse to make out his words. Nico, sobbing softly with exhaustion and relief and joy. The rhythm of her own heart. She opened her eyes and sat up as Mikhail came toward her on unsteady feet. Linnea supported him, and the ring gleamed once again on his right hand.
She could not speak, she could only gaze into that face that was as dear to her as breath. Tears and laughter bubbled up in her. Running her hands over his damp cheeks, she gave herself over to the rapturous moment.
40
Even with careful tending, it would be some while before Marguerida and Mikhail were fully recovered. With Domenic’s blessing, Donal resumed his duties as Mikhail’s paxman. Domenic was able to give Yllana and Rory the simultaneous news of Marguerida’s perilous experiment and that both their parents were now awake and recovering. Relief and rejoicing swept away any momentary indignation at being kept ignorant of Marguerida’s condition. Yllana took over much of the nursing, under the supervision of Katherine and the Castle healers. Rory was offered leave from his duties to be with his family, but he took only enough to visit frequently. Niall accompanied him whenever his own assignments permitted.
Domenic tore himself away from his parents’ bedsides to tour the city. When he visited the treatment centers, he wore a formal cloak of Hastur blue and silver, so that he could be easily recognized, and rode his gray Armida-bred mare. It was important that people see the Acting Regent out on the streets, that they hear his voice.
The shelters originally set up by Darius-Mikhail now served admirably as distribution centers for the serum. The matrix mechanics and leroni supervised teams of healers administering the serum. Many who were originally brought there were well enough to return home.
One morning, not long after Marguerida’s crisis, Domenic found Jeram and Danilo in one such place, in the poorest area of the city. The building they were working in had once been a barn, with worn timbers and a dirt floor. A faint tang of hay and horses remained. The late summer day was mild enough so that the wide doors stood open, as did the shutters of the unglassed windows. Only a short time ago every pallet had been occupied. Now about half were empty, and the remaining patients did not seem seriously ill. In fact, several were sitting up, playing a game of knuckle bones.
A table had been set up at the far end of the shelter, and Jeram and Danilo bent over it, making notations in a log book. Smiling, Domenic approached them.
“It’s going better than we expected.” Lines of fatigue etched Jeram’s face. “It’s too soon to tell if the serum can actually prevent infection or simply attenuate it. I still have to run the f
inal analyses, but I’m hoping that we’ve reduced the number of cases below a critical level.”
“Critical level?” Domenic said. “I don’t understand.”
“The phenomenon is called herd immunity,” Jeram explained. “That is, once enough individuals in a population are immune, the disease cannot spread past a scattering of new cases, not the pandemic of previous years. Even if we don’t achieve that degree of prevention, we still can treat those who contract the fever, and we can develop a new serum in case the virus mutates again.”
We’ve done it! Domenic caught Jeram’s exhilaration.
“Darkover owes you more than we can ever repay,” Domenic said.
“It was a team effort.” Jeram looked uncomfortable about being singled out for such thanks. “You, Ulm, Marguerida, Danilo, Darius-Mikhail, the Keepers, every person who came forward. None of us can claim sole credit. By working together, we found a solution that combined your own healing skills and matrix science with Federation scientific knowledge.”
Danilo looked thoughtful. “I think that’s been a dream ever since the Terranan came to Darkover. Sometimes our two cultures have clashed more than we have cooperated, but we have always been richer together than apart.”
“So Great-Uncle Regis always said,” Domenic said.
A strange look passed over Danilo’s face, and for a moment he was silent. Jeram excused himself to continue about his work, reminding Domenic that the serum must still be distributed and patients tended, lest they succumb to secondary infections.
“Doesn’t Jeram ever rest?” Domenic watched the Terran hurry out the doors.
“Not that I’ve noticed. I’ve rarely seen a man drive himself so hard, as if his soul depended on his making atonement for past sins. May the Bearer of Burdens grant him peace,” Danilo murmured, making a sign of blessing.
Yes, Domenic thought, that felt right, even if phrased in cristoforo terms. He remembered the look that had passed between Lew and Jeram during the meeting when Jeram agreed to help them. A look of understanding, forgiveness. Hope. Jeram’s knowledge, and what he chose to do with it, could kill untold thousands…or save a world.