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 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, no 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 GuardsmanâRegis recognized him now, the young officer Hjalmarâlowered his pike and gave formal challenge.
“Who rides in the Domainsâ” 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 in 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 occurred 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 Arilinnâyou 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 Kermiacâ”
“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 moment 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. Kennard'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 forge-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.
NowâI 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.
What had I been doing with it? At the back of my mind I was absolutely certain that I had been lying here, hallucinating, during all that time. Instead I was up and half dressed. What in the hell was going on?
I went into the bath and stared into a large cracked mirror.
The face which looked out at me was not mine.
My mind reeled for a moment, teetering at the edge of madness. Then I slowly realized that the eyes, the hair, the familiar brows and chin were there. But the face itself was a ghastly network of intersection scars, flaming red weals, blackened bluish welts and ridges. One lip had been twisted up and healed, puckered and drawn, giving me a hideous permanent sneer. There were stray threads of gray in my hair; I looked years older. I wondered, suddenly, in insane panic, if they had kept me here drugged while I grew old. . . .
I calmed the sudden surge of panic. I was wearing the same clothes I had worn when I was captured. They were crushed and dirty, but not frayed or threadbare. Only long enough for my wounds from the beating to heal, then, and for me to acquire some new ones somehow, and that atrocious burn on my hand. I turned away from the mirror with a last rueful glance at the ruin of my face. Whatever pretensions to good looks I might ever have had, they were gone forever. A lot of those scars had healed, which meant they'd never look any better than they did now.
My matrix was back in its bag around my neck, though the thong Kadarin had cut had been replaced with a narrow red silk cord. I fumbled to take it out. Before I had the stone bared, the image flared, golden, burning . . .
Sharra!
With a shudder of horror, I thrust it away again.
What had happened? Where was Marjorie?
Either the thought had called her to me or had been summoned by her approaching presence. I heard the creaking of the door-bolts again and she came into the room and stopped, staring at me with a strange fear. My heart sank down into my boot soles. Had that dream, of all the dreams, been true? For an aching moment I wished we had both died together in the forests. Worse than torture, worse than death, to see Marjorie look at me with fear. . . .
Then she said, “Thank God! You're awake this time and you know me!” and ran straight into my arms. I strained her to me. I wanted never to let her go again. She was sobbing. “It's really you again! All this time, you've never looked at me, not once, only at the matrix. . . .”
Cold horror flooded me. Then some of it had been true.
I said, “I don't remember anything, Marjorie, nothing at all since Kadarin drugged me. For all I know, I have been in this room all that time. What do you mean?”
I felt her trembling. “You don't remember
any
of it? Not the forge-folk, not even the fire at Caer Donn?”
My knees began to collapse under me; I sank on the bed and heard my voice cracking as I said, “I remember nothing, nothing, only terrible ghastly dreams. . . .” The implications of Marjorie's words turned me sick. With a fierce effort I controlled the interior heaving and managed to whisper, “I swear, I remember nothing, nothing. Whatever I may have done . . . Tell me, in Zandru's name, did I hurt you, mishandle you?”
She put her arms around me again and said, “You haven't even
looked
at me. Far less touched me. That was why I said I couldn't go on.” Her voice died. She put her hand on mine. I cried out with the pain and she quickly caught it up, saying tenderly, “Your poor hand!” She looked at it carefully. “It's better, though, it's much better.”
I didn't like to think what it must have been, if this was
better
. No wonder fire had flamed, burned, raged through all my nightmares! But how, in the name of all the devils in all the hells, had I done this?
There was only one answer. Sharra. Kadarin had somehow forced me back into the service of Sharra. But how,
how
? How could he use the skills of my brain while my conscious mind was elsewhere? I'd have sworn it was impossible. Matrix work takes deliberate, conscious concentration. . . . My fists clenched. At the searing pain in my palm I unclenched them again, slowly.
He dared! He dared to steal my mind, my consciousness . . .
But how?
How?
There was only one answer, only one thing he could have done; use all the free-floating rage, hatred, compulsion in my mind, when my conscious control was goneâand take all that and channel it through
Sharra
! All my burning hatred, all the frenzies of my unconscious, freed of the discipline I kept on them, fed through that vicious thing.