I saw shock come over Callina’s face, but I could not keep silent. I burst out, “You people must all have gone mad! Did you say—alliance with Aldaran? Beltran of Aldaran?”
Hastur glanced repressively at me, and Derik Elhalyn said, “I see no reason against it.” He sounded defensive, very young. “The Aldarans are already allied to one major Domain by marriage, as you of all people should know, Dom Lewis. And in this day and age, with the Terrans at our very doorstep, it seems well to me that we should take this opportunity to line up their allegiance with the Comyn.”
He repeated this as a child repeats his lesson. I wondered who had schooled him in that theory. Glancing at Merryl, I decided that the answer was not far to seek.
But—ally with Aldaran? With that damned renegade clan—?
Callina said, “When before this has a Keeper been subjected to the whims of the Council? I am the head of the Aillard Domain in my own right; and not subject to Dom Merryl. I think there need be no further discussion of this—” I could almost hear her sorting through her mind for an inoffensive adjective, and she finally compromised—“this ill-advised plan. I am sorry, my prince; I refuse.”
“You—refuse?” Derik turned to stare at her. “On what grounds, lady?”
She made an impatient gesture; her veil fell back, revealing dark hair braided with gems. She said, “I have no will to marry at this time. And if I should, and when I do, I shall, no doubt, be capable of finding myself a husband who will be suitable. And I do not think I will look for him among the Aldaran Domain. I know more of that Domain than I wish to know, and I tell you, we might as well hand ourselves over here and now to the accursed Terrans than ally with that—” again the mental sorting, the visible search for a word—“with that renegade, exiled Domain.”
Dyan said, “Domna, you have been misinformed.” His voice held that exquisite, indifferent courtesy which he always had when speaking to women. “The Aldaran are no longer in the laps of the Terrans. Beltran has broken that alliance to Terra, and for that reason, if for no other, I do not think we can afford to hold aloof from Aldaran.” He turned to the Council and explained: “Alliance with Aldaran would give us more strength, and that is what we need now, to stand united against the pull of the Terran Empire. Granted, there are those among us who would turn us over to the Terrans—” His eyes moved toward the Ridenow enclosure—“but there are also those who remain loyal to our world and to the old ways. And of these, I am convinced, Beltran of Aldaran is one. Our forefathers—for reasons which seemed good to them, no doubt—cast out the Domain of Aldaran from the Comyn. But there were seven Domains; there should be seven Domains again, and this move, I am sure, would catch the imagination of the common people.”
She said, “I am a Keeper—”
He shrugged and said, “There are others. If Beltran has asked for alliance to the Aillard Domain—”
“Then I say for the Aillards that we will have none of it,” said Callina. And, unexpectedly she turned to me.
“And here sits one who can prove the truth of what I say!”
“You damned, incredible fools!” I heard my own voice, and as Hastur turned to me, there was first a stir of voices, then a mutter, then a clamor, and I realized that once again I had disrupted Council, that I had jumped head-first into an argument I really knew nothing about. But I had started and I must go on.
“The Terrans are bad enough. But what the Aldarans got us into—” I fought for control. I would not, I would not speak the name of that ravening terror, which had flared and raged in the hills, which had sent Caer Donn up in flames, which had burned away my hand and my sanity. . . .
“You ought to be in favor of this alliance,” said Derik. “After all, if we recognize the Aldarans, there won’t be so much question about whether you are legitimate or not, will there?”
I stared at him, wondering if Derik were really this much of a fool, or whether the statement had a profundity that somehow escaped me; no one else seemed inclined to question it. It was like some nightmare, where perfectly ordinary people said the most outrageous things and they were taken for granted.
Dyan Ardais said bluntly, “There’s no question of legitimacy. Council accepted Kennard’s eldest son, and that’s that. Sit down and listen, Lew. You’ve been away a long time, and when you know what’s been happening while you were away, you may change your mind. It might not change your status, but it could change your brother’s.”
I glanced at Marius. It was certain that the recognition of Aldaran would do a great deal to alter his legitimacy or otherwise. But did Dyan honestly think that would make the rest of the Council overlook his Terran blood? Dyan went on, his rich musical voice persuasive and kind, “I think it’s your hate speaking, not your good sense. Comyn—” he said, looking around, “I think we can all agree that Dom Lewis has reason for prejudice. But it was a long time ago. Listen to what we have to say, won’t you?”
There was a general murmur of approval. I could have dealt with hostility from Dyan, but this—! Damn him! He had hinted—no, he had said right out—that I was to be pitied, a cripple with an old grudge, coming back and trying to take up the old feud where I left off! By skillfully focusing all the unspoken feelings, their pity, the old admiration and friendship for my father, he had given them a good reason to disregard what I said.
The worst of it was, I wasn’t sure he was wrong. The rebellion at Aldaran, in which I had played so disastrously wrong-headed a part, had been, like all civil wars, a symptom of something seriously wrong in the culture; not an end in itself. The Aldarans were not the only ones on Darkover who had been lured by the Terran Empire. The Ridenow brothers had almost given up pretending loyalty to the Comyn . . . and they were not the only ones. The Comyn, officially at least, had stood out almost alone against the lure of the Terran Empire, promising a world made easier, simpler, with Terran technology and a star-spanning alliance. I had been an easy scapegoat for both sides, with my Terran blood on the one hand and, on the other, the fact that Kennard, educated on Terra, had nevertheless turned his back on the Empire and become one of the staunchest supporters of the Comyn conservatives. Maybe all sons rebel against their fathers as a matter of course, but few can have had their personal rebellion escalated into such tragedy, or brought down such disaster on their own heads or their families’. I had been drawn into the rebellion, and my tremendous laran, trained at Arilinn, had been put to the service of Beltran’s rebellion and to . . . even now I flinched and could not say the name to myself. My good hand clutched at the matrix and let it go as if it burned me.
Sharra. Ravening, raging, a city in flames . . .
What the hell was I doing here, twice haunted, hag-ridden by my father’s voice . . .
Lerrys Ridenow stood up, turning to Lord Edric for formal permission to speak; Edric gave him the slightest gesture of recognition. He said, “By your leaves, my lords, I would like to say that perhaps this whole argument is futile. The day is past when alliances can be cemented by marriages with unwilling women. Lady Callina is a Keeper, and the independent head of a Domain. If Aldaran wishes to marry into Comyn—”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?” said Merryl. “Make this fine alliance for one of your own, and line Aldaran up with the rest of the toadies licking Terran arses—”
“Enough!” Callina spoke sharply, but I could see the faint stain of color etching her cheek. She was too old, and too well-bred, to reprove him for the obscenity directly, but she said, “I did not give you leave to speak!”
“Zandru’s hells,” shouted Merryl. “Will you silence that woman, Lord Hastur? She knows nothing about this—she has spent her life shut up in one Tower after another—now she is here as a puppet of old Ashara, but are we to keep up this nonsensical farce that a cloistered professional virgin knows anything at all about the conduct of her Domain? Our world is on the edge of destruction. Are we going to sit and listen to a girl squalling that she doesn’t want to marry this one or that?�
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Callina was white to the lips; she stepped forward, her hand clasped at her throat where I knew her matrix was concealed. She said, very low, but her voice carried to the heights of the Crystal Chamber, “Merryl, the rulership of the Domain is not at issue here. A time may come when you wish to dispute it. I cannot keep it by force of arms, perhaps—but I shall keep it by any means I must.” She laid her hand on the matrix, and it seemed to me that somewhere there was a dim rumble as of distant thunder. Without taking the slightest notice, she turned her face to Gabriel and said, “My lord commander, you are charged with keeping peace in this chamber. Do your duty.”
Gabriel laid his hand on Merryl’s arm and spoke to him, in a low, urgent voice. Despite the telepathic dampers, I had no trouble in following the general import of what Gabriel said: that if Merryl didn’t sit down and shut up, he would have him carried out by force. Teeth clenched, Merryl glanced at Dyan Ardais, as if for support, then at Prince Derik.
Derik said uneasily, “Come, come, Merryl, that’s no way to talk before ladies. We’ll discuss it later, my dear fellow. Let’s have peace and quiet here, by all means.”
Merryl sank into a seat, glowering.
Callina said quietly, “As for this marriage, I think everyone here knows that it is not marriage which is being discussed. It is power, my lords, power in the Comyn. Why should we not call things by their right names? The question before us, and I think my brother knows it as well as I do, is this: do we want to put that kind of power within Comyn in the hands of the Aldarans? I think not. And there sits one who can attest to the truth of what I say. Would you like to tell them, Dom Lewis, why it would be—unwise—to put that much power in the hands of Aldaran, or to trust him with it.”
I felt my forehead breaking out in cold sweat. I knew I should explain myself, calmly and quietly, how at one time I had trusted Beltran, and how I had been—betrayed. Now I must speak calmly, without undue emotion.
Yet, to drag it all out here, in Council, before all those kinsmen who had tried to deny me my very place in this room . . . I could not. My voice failed me, I felt it strangle in my throat, and knew if I spoke aloud I would crack completely. My father’s voice, the ravening flames of Sharra, the continuous unrhythmic waves of the telepathic jangle—my head was pandemonium. Yet Callina was standing there, waiting for me to speak, and I opened my mouth, trying to force myself to find words. I heard only a raw meaningless croak. I finally managed to say, “You—know. You were there at Arilinn—”
And I cringed before the pity in her eyes. She said, “I was there when Lew came to Arilinn with his wife, after they both risked their lives to break the link with Sharra.”
“Sharra is not relevant here,” said Dyan harshly. “The link was broken and the matrix controlled again. We are talking now of Beltran of Aldaran. And he, too, has a strong interest in seeing that nothing like that ever happens again. As for Lew—” his eyes turned on me. “I am sorry to say this, kinsman, but those who meddle with forces as strong as Sharra should not complain if they are—hurt. I cannot but think that Lew brought his trouble upon himself, and he has had his lesson—as Beltran has had his.”
I bent my head. Perhaps he was right, but that made it no easier. I had learned to live with what had happened, after a fashion. That did not mean I was willing to hear Dyan lecture me about it.
Regis Hastur rose to his feet within the Hastur enclosure. He said, not looking at me, “I cannot see that Lew was so much to blame. But whether or nor, I do not think we can trust Beltran. It was Beltran’s doing, and Kadarin’s. And Lew was Beltran’s kinsman, his guest and under the safeguard of hospitality. He imprisoned him; he imprisoned me; he kidnapped Danilo and attempted to force him to use his laran for the Sharra circle. And if Beltran did this to a kinsman—” he turned and gestured, with what seemed mute apology for turning all eyes to me—“how could anyone trust him?”
I could read the horror in the eyes turned on me; even through the telepathic damper their horror surged into my mind, the shock and horror . . . the scars on my face, the arm ending abruptly at the wrist, the horror that had surged into my mind from Dio when she saw in my mind the horror that had been our child . . . Merciful Avarra, was there no end to this agony? I dropped my forehead on my arms, hiding my face, hiding my mutilated arm. Marius laid his hand on my shoulder; I hardly felt it there.
Danilo’s voice, shaken with emotion, took up the tale where Regis had left off.
“It was Beltran’s doing; he had Lew tied and beaten. He stripped him of his matrix. All of you Comyn who have been in a Tower know what that means! And why? Because Lew begged him to use caution with Sharra, to turn it over to one of our own Towers and see if a safe way could be found for its harnessing! And look at Lew’s face! This—this torturer is the man you want to invite courteously into Comyn, to marry the head of a Domain and Ashara’s Keeper?”
Dyan’s voice lashed. “I did not give you leave to speak!”
Danilo turned to him. He was very pale. “My Lord, with all respect, I am testifying only to the truth of what I witnessed with my own eyes. And it is relevant to what is being discussed in the Comyn. I have Council-right; am I to sit silent?”
Hastur said, his displeasure evident in his voice, “It seems this is the day for all the unruly younger members of the Domains to speak in Council without leave of their elders!” His eyes rested on Merryl, on Danilo, then on Regis, and the younger man drew a deep breath.
“By your leave, sir, I can only repeat what my paxman said: I am testifying to what I myself saw and witnessed. When we see our elders and—and our betters, about to take a step which they could not honorably take if all the facts were known to them, then, for the—” again he hesitated, almost stammering—“for the honor of the Comyn, we must bring it to the light. Or are we to believe, sir, that the Comyn consider it of no importance that Beltran was capable of betraying, and torturing, a kinsman?” The words were impeccably courteous, and the tone; but his eyes were blazing.
“All this,” said Dyan, “took place a long time ago.”
“Still,” said Regis, “before we bring Beltran of Aldaran into Comyn itself—whether by marriage-right or any other way—should we not first assure ourselves that he has come to think otherwise about what has happened?” And then he said what I knew I should have said myself. “In the names of all the Gods, do we want the kind of thing that happened in Caer Donn to happen in Thendara? Do we want—Sharra?”
Lerrys Ridenow came down to the center of the dais. I had not seen him since shortly after my marriage to Dio; but he had not changed: slender, elegant, dressed now in Darkovan clothing, the green and gold of the Ridenow Domain, but exhibiting the same foppish grace as he had had in the clothing he had worn on the pleasure world.
He said, “Are you going to raise the bogey of Sharra again? We all know the link was broken and the matrix controlled again. The Sharra matrix is no trouble to anyone now—or rather,” he said, raising his head and cocking it a little to one side with a calculating glance at me, “it may be very grave trouble to Lew Alton, but he asked, after all, for his trouble.”
How could he have known that? Dio must have told him! How could she . . . how could she have betrayed to him what was so personal to me? And what else had she told him, what else had she betrayed? I had trusted her implicitly. . . . My hand clenched and I bit back a rising surge of nausea. I did not want to believe that Dio could have betrayed me this way.
But next to me, Marius rose to his feet. I was startled, almost turned to him to remind him sharply that he had no voice here—then I remembered. He was one of the official claimants for the Alton Domain; they could no longer refuse to acknowledge his existence.
He said, and his voice was only a shred of sound. “That’s not true, Dom Lerrys. The matrix is—is active again. Lord Regis, tell them what you saw . . . in my father’s house, not three days ago.”
“It’s true,” Regis said, and he was very pale. “The Sharra matrix i
s alive again. But I did not know, at that time, that Lew Alton had returned to Darkover. I think he must have brought it back with him.”
I had had no choice, but there was no way I could tell them that. While Regis spoke, I listened, transfixed with horror. I clutched at Marius’s sleeve and said, “Rafe. He is in Thendara. . . .”
But I hardly heard Marius’s reply.
Rafe was in Thendara.
That meant Kadarin and Thyra were—somewhere.
And so was the Sharra matrix.
And so—all the Gods of Darkover be merciful—so was I.
CHAPTER THREE
Even as he told the story of what he had seen in Kennard’s house the night Marius had come in panic to summon him, Regis watched Lew, thinking that he would hardly have known the older man, who had been like a brother in his childhood. Lew looked, he formed the thought without volition, like something hung up in a field to scare the birds! Not so much the gauntness, though he was thin enough, and looked worn, nor even the dreadful scars. No, it was something in the eyes, something haunted and terrible.
In six years, has he found no peace?
Surely it was only that Lew was travel-worn, still suffering with the shock of his father’s sudden death. Regis knew that when he could stop to think, he too would mourn the kindly and genial man who had been foster-father and friend, who had trained him in swordplay and given him the only family and home he had ever known. But this was no time for mourning. Tersely, he completed the tale.
“. . . and when I tried to look within my own matrix, it was as it had been in the Hellers, during that time when Sharra was freed and Lew was—enslaved. I saw nothing but the Form of Fire.”
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