Hastur Lord d-23

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  A tap on the door brought him alert. Mikhail stepped in, backlit so that he appeared to be enveloped in his own golden aura. Regis smiled and gestured for him to come in.

  Mikhail surveyed the room with an expression bordering on awe. “So this is where Darkover’s destiny was plotted. And it’s yours now.”

  “No,” Regis said, shaking his head, “it’s ours.I have no intention of sitting here alone, spinning out schemes like a spider in the center of a planet-spanning web. The reason I formed the Telepath Council in the first place was to ensure that many voices be heard. Together, we will plan our future.” With a light touch, he guided Mikhail into the chair behind the desk.

  “Uncle Regis, I can’t sit here! This is your place now!”

  “Someday, my lad, it will be yours. I want you to have the best training I can give you.”

  “I’m not ready!”

  “Not now, but you will be,” Regis said, reflecting that no honest man ever felt truly prepared for such a position. He himself certainly did not. Changing the subject, he pointed to a sheaf of papers covered with Danvan Hastur’s circular scrawl.

  Mikhail could read and write the two primary Darkovan languages, castaand informal cahuenga,as well as Terran Standard. “I think I could make out this handwriting with a little practice. It’s Lord Hastur’s, isn’t it?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. He also employed a secretary, sometimes two or three, most of them trained at the Nevarsin monastery, so their script is quite clear.” Regis himself wrote a barely legible scrawl, but Danilo, who had also studied at St. Valentine’s, still had the clearest writing of any of them.

  “Much of this is of historical value,” Regis said, “but some will help us now. I’ll spend some time going through the documents, but I cannot do it alone.”

  And I dare not trust anyone besides you and Danilo.

  Mikhail looked up, eyes wide. “Where do you want me to begin? How should I sort all this?”

  “Let’s start by making an inventory. Use general categories—personal, Hastur Domain, Comyn Council, like that. Set aside anything that strikes you as pertinent to the Federation membership. And . . .”

  “Yes?”

  “There may be a reference to a man named Rinaldo. He’d be in his early forties now. Please show me anything you find, even the slightest mention . . . and I trust your discretion. Mention this to no one.”

  The light in Mikhail’s eyes gave Regis confidence in the younger man’s probity. Again, he blessed the impulse that led him to choose Mikhail over his brothers. They had turned into sturdy, reliable, unimaginative men, a credit to their family and caste. Mikhail . . . Mikhail was something more. Regis determined that, no matter what happened, Mikhail must not be pushed aside.

  9

  Afew days later, as Mikhail continued to sort and catalog Danvan’s papers, Regis received another coded message from Lew Alton. As before, this was delivered through Dan Lawton’s office. Unlike the previous message, however, this one began with Lew’s request that the Legate listen to its content.

  Regis had thought it was not possible for Lew to look any more haggard. With his scarred face and eyes etched with sorrow, Lew had always appeared older than his years. Tightly bottled anger now flushed his features.

  “Regis . . . and Dan, I am assuming you are listening to this together.” Lew’s normal voice was hoarse because of his damaged vocal cords. “First of all, Regis, I’m sorry about your grandfather. I wish I could have spoken at the rhu fead, but that is for another life. In all sincerity, I wish him peace.”

  Regis, knowing the struggles Lew had endured with his own father’s death, bowed his head.

  Lew went on, his voice more gravelly than before, “I have made no secret about my opposition to Darkover’s membership in the new Federation. As you can imagine, this has not been well received in some quarters. Darkover’s location on the galactic arm makes it a rich prize. I’ve heard speculation about turning the entire planet into a military base.”

  As Lew drew in his breath, a vision came to Regis of forests razed, villages cemented over and rivers dammed, fields of permacrete covered by an armada of ships, blasting off again and again until the earth cried out like a wounded beast . . . the native peoples, from the shy arboreal trailmen to the ethereal chieriextinct . . . the Comyn preserved like zoo specimens . . .

  That must never come to pass. Not so long as I have breath and strength to prevent it.

  “I swear to you, Regis,” Lew was speaking again now, and it seemed to Regis that the other man echoed his own thoughts, “that I will be damned in Zandru’s coldest Hell before I let that happen. But three days ago . . . they came for me in the night, here in the Diplomatic Sector. Only two of them,” and here, Lew’s lips twisted in a feral grimace, and Regis remembered that even one- handed, Lew was a formidable opponent with Darkovan weapons. “My wife and daughter are shaken but unharmed,” Lew ended. “I don’t think they’ll try again, but I’ve sent Dio and Marja off-world for safety.”

  Lawton, standing beside Regis, drew in his breath. His hands had curled into fists, and he was almost shaking with outrage.

  “As Senator and as Alton,I will do whateverI can,” Lew said, putting a faint, suggestive emphasis on the words. “Darkover must stand firm. Any sign of weakness or division and the Expansionists will seize the opening. I won’t be able to stop them. Regis, we’re counting on you.”

  So it had come at last, the fate Regis had struggled so long to avoid.

  The screen flickered into blankness as the play-and-destroy program ran to completion. For a long moment, none of the three men said anything. Regis sensed Danilo’s unvoiced thought, I am with you, no matter where this takes us.

  To be king, you mean.Desperation boiled up in Regis. There must be another way to keep Darkover free! We must not exchange one kind of tyranny for another.

  “Dan, leave us for a moment,” Regis said. “I want to send a private reply.”

  “Play-and-destruct?”

  Grimly, Regis nodded. Dan set the console to encrypt the return message and then left. Danilo glanced at the closed door, but Regis had no doubt of the Legate’s integrity.

  Regis leaned back in the console chair. The plasteen and metal gave slightly under his weight. He wished, not for the first time, that the interstellar void was not such a barrier to mental communication. Only the most extraordinary telepaths could contact one another over more than the shortest distances. He and Lew must used nuanced words to convey what would be so simple face-to face.

  Lew’s message, although forthright enough on the surface, carried a deeper meaning, that slight emphasis on the word whatevercoupled with the deliberate mention of Lew’s Domain. Lew was the only adult known to possess the Alton Gift, the ability to force mental rapport, even with nontelepaths.

  Regis paused, his fingertip hovering above the panel that would begin the recording. Lew, like every other Darkovan who had trained at a Tower, had taken an oath never to enter the mind of another except to help or heal and then only with consent.

  Was Lew serious about using laranto sway the Federation politicians? To convince them that Darkover was not worth bothering with, that it would be better to let Darkover go its own way and remain a Closed World?

  He knows I would never ask such a thing, Regis thought, but clearly, he feels the situation might require it.

  Regis had sometimes wondered why the Alton Gift had been bred into the Comyn during the Ages of Chaos. The leroniof the Towers recognized it as dangerous but had not seen fit to eliminate it. Instead, it had been preserved through the centuries.

  As a final weapon? Or as a last defense when all else failed?

  A defense when the future of Darkover hung in the balance?

  It went against his training and personal ethics to order Lew to use the Alton Gift in this way.

  At the back of his mind, Regis felt Danilo’s steady support, his abiding trust. Regis drew in his breath and touched the panel.

>   “ DomLewis-Kennard Alton,” he said, using the formal title to convey his understanding of Lew’s reference. “The situation is indeed distressing. I am glad that you have taken those precautions you deem necessary. During these difficult times, Darkover could have no better spokesman and protector. I have always known you to be a man of honor. You have my authority to act as you see fit.”

  Before he could say anything more, Regis cut off the recording. He would neither command nor forbid Lew in such a matter of conscience. He was not Lew’s Keeper, nor would he ever wish to wield that kind of power over another.

  With a silent prayer to whatever god might be listening, or whatever power could span the light- years, he tapped the panel to send the message. It was done, for good or ill.

  And, for good or ill, if Darkover was to remain free, he must take up the full power and influence of the Lord of Hastur.

  Outside the Headquarters Building, the Terran Sector seemed bleaker than ever. Structures of steel and glass rose like the walls of canyons where the sun never shone. The wind tasted like dust and metal; as it swept through the streets, it sounded like keening.

  Regis said little as he and Danilo made their way back to Comyn Castle. They were, as usual, in light rapport, so Danilo sensed his mood. “Has Mikhail found any clue as to your brother’s whereabouts?”

  Regis shook his head. “I am beginning to think Grandfather invented Rinaldo in order to get me to do what he wanted. I can hear him saying, from his grave, ‘If you don’t take your responsibilities as the Heir of Hastur seriously, then I’ll find someone else who will!’ ”

  “Not even Lord Hastur would fabricate a lost brother for such a purpose,” Danilo said.

  They passed the borders of the Terran Zone under the watchful eyes of a Spaceforce patrol.

  “I have been considering the problem,” Danilo said, “and I think it likely that if Lord Hastur recorded this knowledge, it would have been not on paper, which could be stolen and used against him, but to someone he trusted without reservation.”

  Who might that have been? Danvan Hastur had outlived any cousins or comrades who came to manhood with him, and his only son was dead.

  When Regis voiced his question, Danilo shook his head and said he would look into it before venturing more. Regis knew his bredhyu’sstubborn nature well enough to not press him.

  Regis paced his sitting room, waiting for the signal that the meeting of the Telepath Council was ready to begin. It would not take place in the Crystal Chamber, for the remaining Comyn would object strenuously if an assembly such as the Telepath Council met there, and Regis needed their support. Instead, he had chosen one of the newer, less formal halls.

  As usual, when faced with addressing a large group, his thoughts tangled like one of Javanne’s childhood embroidery samplers. He had given enough public speeches to know that the feeling would pass. The trick was to make eye contact with a few people and speak directly to them. Moreover, he must speak from his heart.

  How, in all the world, could he speak from his heart when he wore the mantle of Hastur? He threw himself into a chair beside the door, then heaved himself up again. One thought returned to him again and again.

  There is no one else. I alone must do this!

  Only the day before, official word had come through the Legate’s office. All worlds previously classified as Class D Closed were now subject to automatic Open citizenship unless they requested an exemption.

  Request? We mustdemand it!

  Regis was so distracted that he heard the knock at the door before he felt Danilo’s presence.

  Danilo cracked the door open. “ Vai dom,it’s time.”

  Regis straightened his shoulders and glanced down at his attire, a formal suit of suede, with high boots to match, all dyed in Hastur blue, the jacket embroidered in silver thread with the fir-tree emblem of his Domain. A bejeweled ceremonial sword hung from an equally flamboyant belt. Javanne had urged him to add a court-length cloak trimmed with marlfur, but he had refused.

  “How do I look?”

  One corner of Danilo’s mouth quirked upward. He stepped back and gestured for Regis to lead the way.

  The four Guards stationed outside the door were seasoned veterans, for theirs was a post of honor. They bowed to Regis and stood back.

  Gabriel Lanart-Hastur announced, “Regis-Rafael Felix Alar Hastur y Elhalyn, Hastur of Hastur!” In the old times, the title would have included, “Regent of the Crown of the Seven Domains,” but Regis would not permit it.

  Regis forced himself to a stately pace. The crowd drew back to let him pass. He waded through a sea of faces crowned with hair in a hundred shades of red, from flaming fire to pale-rose-tinted flax to burnt copper.

  Here and there, Regis recognized friend or kin. Javanne stood in the center of a knot of glittering nobles, including Marilla Lindir and Valdir Ridenow. The earnest young man at Valdir’s side must be Francisco. Mikhail, standing a little apart from the others, smiled as Regis passed, as did a Renunciate with an open, generous face. Regis did not see any Tower folk. He wished Linnea were here.

  Unlike the Crystal Chamber, this room had not been equipped with telepathic dampers. Even through his laranbarriers, Regis felt the vast, unfocused presence of so many minds. He clenched his jaw, forced himself to breathe, and stepped onto the platform at the far end of the chamber.

  Most of the audience knew that the time had come for Darkover to choose or reject full Federation membership. Even so, Regis began with a brief discussion of the particulars involved, the drawbacks and costs as well as the benefits of such a move.

  The Telepath Council included traders and merchants as well as aristocrats. The pro-Terran Pan Darkovan League, while not officially present, spoke through its sympathizers. Those whose livelihood depended upon interstellar trade made no secret of welcoming greater access to foreign markets and suppliers. As Regis expected, they presented their concerns in carefully calculated, rehearsed phrases.

  “Darkover must take its rightful place among the great worlds of the new Federation,” said an aging man with more gray than rust- red in his hair. Regis knew him from the lower Cortes and by reputation as a sound judge of character, respected by the community. Even without laran,the man’s sincerity rang out; he truly believed what he said.

  “We should not have to beg for the privileges and rights that are due to us,” the man went on. “Many of the Federation welcome us like the long-parted kinsmen we are. We should rectify the mistake of confining ourselves to Closed World status.”

  Murmurs of agreement spread through the chamber. The League spokesman had appealed to their pride, offering a vision of Darkover as one among equals, no longer a second- rate backwater world but a great among greats.

  “I do not speak solely for those whose businesses depend upon off-world trade and travel. Every one of us, throughout the Domains, will benefit from the superior technology of the Terrans, as well as their medicine and science. More than that, the Federation offers education for all our sons, not just those fortunate enough to have been born Comyn!”

  As the man spoke, Regis felt the old longing to take passage in one of those starfaring vessels, to walk upon strange worlds and meet people to whom the name Hasturmeant nothing. Since that was not possible—he had long since given his oath to his Domain and the Comyn—he had made sure that Mikhail benefited from Terran education. How many boys—and girls, too—still hungered for that knowledge?

  Modern techniques of weather control could transform Darkovan agriculture, make travel throughout the Hellers possible, and bring the lands beyond the Wall Around the World into contact with the Domains. Some day, the deserts of the Dry Towns might be reclaimed, as well.

  Regis paused and the crowd grew still. He drew in his breath, willing his heart to be still. An unnamed force rose up in him, flowed throughhim, a force that came from beyond his own limited physical and intellectual powers. He felt himself reaching out to his audience with mental touch as well as
words. Phrases rolled through his mind.

  “Everything that this good man has said is true. If it were not, there would be no difficulty in making this decision.” Regis sensed the ripple of surprise and outrage from the conservatives among the Comyn. None of them had expected him to agree with the pro-Federationists.

  “At the same time, these benefits come with a price. The Federation will demand that in return, we acknowledge them as our lawful government. Do we truly wish to be ruled not by our own people but by men who have never walked beneath our Bloody Sun, never seen snow on the Hellers peaks, never dreamed of chierisinging beneath the Four Moons? Men who know nothing of our customs and history, our honor, our gods? To them, the Compact is no more than a backward superstition. I need not remind you that the Terrananthink it honorable to settle their differences with blasters and nerve guns and far more terrible weapons that kill indiscriminately and at a distance, while those who give the orders hide in safety.”

  The murmurs shifted now, like the soft growl of a cloud leopard scenting danger. Regis held out his hands, and it felt as if his heart opened as well. Eyes shining, Danilo looked up at him. Emotion flushed Javanne’s cheeks. Gabriel was nodding, and even stolid Ruyven Di Asturien looked moved.

  He had them . . . almost.

  “My friend has offered a vision of greatness and equality, of riches and opportunity. Who would not want that? But in a Federation spanning a thousand worlds, Darkover will become one more poor, backward world. We will be reduced to accepting handouts from those who care nothing for our dreams.