"I may indeed ask Regis for your aid, Dani," I said quietly. "He too is my friend. But I will never force you. I am not Dyan ArdaisI"
That made him smile a little. "I never thought you were, Lew. And if my lord gives me leave, then I will trust him, and you. But until that time shall come, Dom Lewis"?he gave me my title very formally, though we had been using the familiar mode before this?"have I your permission to depart and return to my father?"
I gestured at the snow, a white torrent whipping the windows, sending little spits of sleet down the chimney. "In this, lad? Let me at least offer you the hospitality of my kinsman's roof until the weather suits! Then you shall be given proper escort and company out of these mountains. You cannot expect me to set you adrift in these mountains, at night and in winter, with a storm blowing up?" I summoned a servant again, and requested that he provide proper lodging for a guest, near my own quarters. Before Danilo went away to his bed, I gave him a kinsman's embrace, which he returned with a childlike friendliness that made me feel better.
But I was still deeply troubled. Damn it, I'd have a word with Beltran before I slept!
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Chapter SEVENTEEN
Regis rode slowly, head down against the biting wind. He told himself that if he ever got out of these mountains, no place on Darkover would ever seem cold to him again.
A few days ago he had stopped in a mountain village and traded his horse for one of the sturdy little mountain ponies. He felt a sort of despairing grief at the necessity?the black mare was Kennard's gift and he loved her?but this one attracted less attention and was surer-footed along the terrible trails. Poor Melisande would surely have died of the cold or broken a leg on these steep paths.
The trip had been a long nightmare: steep unfamiliar trails, intense cold, sheltering at night in abandoned barns or shepherd's huts or wrapped in cloak and blanket against a rock wall, close curled against the horse's body. He tried in general to avoid being seen, but every few days he had gone into a village to bargain for food and fodder for his pony. He aroused little curiosity; he thought life must be so hard in these mountains that the people had no time for curiosity about travelers.
Now and again, when he feared losing his way, he had drawn out the matrix, trying by furious concentration to fix his attention on Danilo. The matrix acted like one of those Terran instruments Kennard had once told him about, guiding him, with an insistent subliminal pull, toward Aldaran and Danilo.
By now he was numbed to fear, and only determination kept him going, that, and the memory of his pledge to Dani's father. But there were times when he rode in a dark dream, losing awareness of Danilo and the roads where he was. Images would spin in his mind, which seemed to drink up pictures and thoughts from the villages he passed. The thought of looking again into the matrix filled him with such a crawling sickness that he could not force himself to draw it out. Threshold sickness again. Javanne had warned him. At
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the last few villages he had simply inquired the road to Aldaran.
All the morning he had been riding up a long slope where forest fires had raged a few seasons ago. He could see miles of scorched and blackened hillside, ragged stumps sticking up gaunt and leafless through the gullied wasteland. In his hyper-suggestible state the stink of burned woods, ashes and soot swirling up every time Ms pony put a hoof down, brought him back to that last summer at Armida and his first turn on the fire-lines, the night the fire came so close to Armida that the outbuildings burned.
That evening he and Lew had eaten out of the same bowl because supplies were running short. When they had laid down the stink of ashes and burned wood was all around them. Regis had smelled it even in his sleep, the way he was smelling it now. Toward midnight something woke him, and he had seen Lew sitting bolt upright, staring at the red glow where the fire was.
And Regis had known Lew was afraid. He'd touched Lew's mind, and felt it: his fear, the pain of his burns, everything. He could feel it as if it had been in his own mind. And Lew's fear hurt so much that Regis couldn't stand it. He would have done anything to comfort Lew, to take his mind off the pain and the fear. It had been too much. Regis couldn't shut it out, couldn't stand it
But he had forgotten. Had made himself forget, till now. He had blocked away the memory until, later that year, when he was tested for laran at Nevarsin, he had not even remembered anything but the fire.
And that, he realized, was why Lew was surprised when Regis told him he did not have laran,...
The mountain pony stumbled and went down. Regis scrambled to his feet, shaken but unhurt, taking the beast by the bridle and gently urging him to his feet. He ran his hand up and down the animal's legs. No bones were broken, but the pony flinched when Regis touched his rear right hock. He was limping, and Regis knew the pony could not bear his weight for a while. He led him along the trail as they crested the pass. The downward trail was even steeper, black and mucky underfoot where recent rains had soaked the remnants of the fire. The stench in his nostrils was worse than ever, restimulating again the memories of the earlier fire and the shared fear. He kept asking himself why he forgot, why he made himself forget.
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The sun was hidden behind thick clouds. A few drifting snowflakes, not many but relentless, began to fall as he went down toward the valley. He guessed it was about midday. He felt a little hungry, but not enough to stop and dig into his pack and get out something to eat.
He hadn't been eating much lately. The villagers had been kind to him, often refusing to take payment for food, which was tasty, though unfamiliar. He was usually on the edge of nausea, though, unwilling to start up that reflex again by actually chewing and swallowing something. Hunger was less painful.
After a time he did dig some grain out of his pack for the horse. The trail was well-traveled now; there must be another village not far away. But the silence was disturbing. Not a dog barked, no wild bird or beast cried. There was no sound but his own footsteps and the halting rhythm of the lame pony's steps. And, far above, the unending wind moaning in the gaunt snags of the dead forest.
It was too much solitude. Even the presence of a bodyguard would have been welcome now, or two, chatting about the small chances of the trail. He remembered riding in the hills around Armida with Lew, hunting or checking the herdsmen who cared for the horses out in the open uplands. Suddenly, as if the thought of Lew had brought him to mind again, Lew's face was before him, lighted with a glow?not forest fire now! It was aglow, blazing in a great blue glare, space-twisting, gut-wrenching, the glare of the matrix! The ground was reeling and dipping under his feet, but for a moment, even as Regis dropped the pony's reins and clapped his hands over his tormented eyes, he saw a great form sketch itself on the inside of his eyelids, inside his very brain,
. . . a woman, a golden goddess, flame-clothes, flame-crowned, golden-chained, burning, glowing, blazing, consuming . . .
Then he lost consciousness. Over his head the mountain pony edged carefully around, uneasily nuzzling at the unconscious lad.
It was the pony's nuzzling that woke him, some time later. The sky was darkening, and it was snowing so hard that when he got stiffly to his feet, a little cascade of snow showered off him. A fauit sickening smell told him that he had vomited as he lay senseless. What in Zandru's hells happened to me?
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He dug his water bottle from his saddlebag, rinsed his mouth and drank a little, but was still too queasy to swallow much.
It was snowing so hard that he knew he must find shelter at once. He had been trained at Nevarsin to find shelter in unlikely places, even a heap of underbrush would do, but on a road as well-traveled as this there were sure to be huts, barns, shelters. He was not mistaken. A few hundred feet further on, the outline of a great stone barn made a dark square against the swirling whiteness. The stones were blackened with the fire that had swept over it and a few
of the roof slates had fallen in, but someone had replaced the door with rough-hewn planking. Drifted ice and snow from the last storm was banked against the door, but he knew that in mountain country doors were usually left unfastened against just such emergencies. After much struggling and heaving Regis managed to shove the rough door partway open and wedge himself and the pony through into a gloomy and musty darkness. It had once been a fodder-storage bam; there were still a few rodent-nibbled bales lying forgotten against the walls. It was bitterly cold, but at least it was out of the wind. Regis unsaddled his pony, fed him and hobbled him loosely at one end of the barn. Then he raked some more of the moldy fodder together, laid his blankets out on it, crawled into them and let sleep, or unconsciousness, take him again.
This long sleep was more like shock, or suspended animation, than any normal sleep. Regis could not know it was the mental and physical reaction of a telepath hi crisis. Now it only seemed that he wandered for eternities?certainly for days?in restless nightmares. At times he seemed to leave his aching body behind and wander in gray formless space, shouting helplessly and knowing he had no voice. Once or twice, coming up to dim semiconsciousness, he found his face wet and knew he had been crying in his sleep. Time disappeared. He wandered in what he only dimly knew was the past or the future: now in the dormitories of Nevarsin where the memory of cold, loneliness and an aching frustration held him aloof, frightened, friendless; now by the fireside at Armida, then bending with Lew and an unknown fair-haired girl over the bedside of an apparently dying child, again wandering through thick forests while strange aliens, red-eyed, peered at them through the trees.
Again he was fighting with knives along a narrow ledge,
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the ragged red-eyed aliens thrusting at him, trying to kick him off. He sat in the Council chamber and heard Terrans arguing; in the Guard hall of Comyn Castle he saw Danilo's sword breaking with that terrible sound of shattering glass. He was looking down with a sense of aching tragedy at two small children, pale and lifeless, lying side by side in their coffins, dead by treachery, so young, so young, and knew they were his own. Again he stood in the armory, numb and shamed into immobility while Dyan's hands ran along his bare bruised body, and then he and Danilo were standing by a fountain in the plaza at Thendara, only Danilo was taller and bearded, drinking from wooden tankards and laughing while girls threw festival garlands down from windows above them.
After a time he began to filter these random awarenesses more critically. He saw Lew and Danilo standing by a fireplace in a room with a mosaic pattern of white birds on the floor, talking earnestly, and he felt insanely jealous. Then it seemed as if Kennard was calling his name in the gray dim spaces, and he could see Kennard drifting far off hi the dimness. Only Kennard was not lame now, but young and straight-backed and smiling as Regis could hardly remember him. He was calling, with a mounting sense of urgency, Regis, Regis, where are you? Don't hide from mef We have to find you! All Regis could make of this was that he had left the Guards without leave and the Commander wanted to have him brought back and punished. He knew he could make himself invisible here in these gray spaces, so he did, running from the voice full speed over a gray and featureless plain, though by this time he was perfectly well aware that he was lying half-conscious in the abandoned fodder-barn. And then he saw Dyan in the gray spaces, only Dyan as a boy his own age. Somehow he dimly realized that, in this gray world where bodies did not come but only minds, every man appeared as he saw himself in his own mind, so of course Kennard looked well and young. Dyan was saying, / can't find him, Kennard, he is nowhere in the overworld, and Regis felt himself laughing inside and saying, I'm here but I don't have to let you see me here. Then Kennard and Dyan were standing close together, their hands joined, and he knew that together they were seeking him out. Their faces and figures disappeared, they were only eyes in the grayness, seeking, seeking. He knew he must leave the gray world or they would find him now. Where could he go? He didn't want to
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go back! He could see Danilo in the distance, then they were both back in the dark barracks room?that night!?and he was bending over his friend, touching him with aching solicitude. And then that terrible, strained whisper, the shock more mental than physical as he thrust him away: Come near me again, you filthy ombredin, and I'll break your neck . . .
But I was only trying to reach him, help him. Wasn't I? Wasn't I? And with a shuddering gasp Regis sat up, fully awake at last, staring into the dim light that filtered through a broken roof-slate above him. He was shaking from head to foot and bis body ached as if he had been battered and beaten. He was completely conscious, though, and his mind was clear. At the far end of the barn the pony was stamping restlessly. Slowly, Regis got to his feet, wondering how long he bad been there.
Far too long. The pony had eaten every scrap of the ample fodder and nosed the floor clear of chaff as far as he could reach.
Regis went to the door and swung it open. It had stopped snowing long since. The sun was out, and melted snow dripped in runnels from the roof. Regis was aware of a raging thirst, but like all lifelong horsemen he thought first of his pony. He led the horse to the door and released him; after a moment the pony made off, deliberately, around the corner to the rear of the building, Regis followed, finding an old well there, covered against the snow, with a workable though creaky and leaking bucket assembly. He watered the pony and drank deeply, then, shivering, stripped off his clothes. He was grateful for the austere discipline of Nevarsin, which made it possible for him to wash in the icy water of the well. His clothes smelled of sweat and sickness; he got fresh ones from his pack. Shivering, but feeling immensely better, he sat down on the well-side and chewed dried fruit Cold as he was, the ulterior of the building seemed to reek of his nightmares and echo with the voices he had heard in his delirium, if it had all been delirium. What else could it have been?
Moving slowly until he knew he could rely on his body to do what he told it, he saddled the pony again and collected his belongings. He must be nearing the Aldaran lands now and there was no time to lose.
The snow had drenched the smell of forest fire and he was glad. He had not ridden more than an hour or two when he heard the sound of approaching horses and drew aside to let
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them pass. Instead they confronted him, blocking the road, demanding his name and business.
He said, "I am Regis-Rafael Hastur, and I am on my way to Castle Aldaran."
"And I," the leader, a big swarthy mountain man, said in a mincing voice that mocked Regis' careful casta accent, "am the Terran Legate from Port Chicago. Well, whoever you are, you'll go to Aldaran, and damn quick, too."
It had evidently been nearer than Regis believed; as they reached the top of the next hill he saw the castle, and beyond it the city of Gear Donn and the white Terran buildings.
Now that he was actually within sight of Aldaran bis old fears returned. No man knew?or if they did it was the best kept secret on Darkover?why Aldaran had been exiled from the Seven Domains.
They couldn't be that bad, Regis thought. Kennard had married into their kin. And if they were once of the Seven Domains, they too must be of the sacred lineage of Hastur and Cassilda. And why should a Hastur fear his kindred? He asked himself this as he rode through the great gates. Yet he was afraid.
Mountain men dressed in curiously cut leather cloaks took their horses. One of the guards led Regis into a hall, where he talked at length with another guard, then finally said, "We'll take you to Lord Aldaran, but if you're not who you claim you are, you'd better plan on spending the rest of the day in the brig. The old lord is ill, and none of us takes kindly to the notion of bothering him with an impostor!"
They conducted him through long stone corridors and along flights of stairs, pausing at last outside a great door. From inside they could hear voices, one low and undistin-gui
shable, the other a harsh old man's voice, protesting angrily:
"Zandru's hells! Kirian, at my age! As if I were a schoolboy?oh, very well, very well! But what you are doing is dangerous if it can have side effects like this, and I want to know more?a great deal more?before I let it go on!"
The guards exchanged glances over Regis* head; one of them knocked lightly and someone told them to come in.
It was a large, high-arched stone chamber, gray with the outdoor light At the far end, a thin old man lay in a raised bed, propped on many pillows. He glared at them in angry question. "What's this now? What's this?"
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"An intruder on the borders, Lord Aldaran, maybe a spy from the Domains."
"Why, he's just a boy," the old man said. "Come here, child." The guards thrust Regis forward, and the old eyes focused, hawk-keen, on him. Then he smiled, an odd amused smile.
"Humph! No need to ask your name! If ever a man wore his lineage on his face! You might be Rafael's son. I thought his heir was still in the schoolroom, though. Which one are you, then, some nedestro or old Danvan's bastard, maybe?"
Regis lifted his chin. "I am Regis-Rafael Hastur of Hastur!"
"Then in hell's name," said the old man testily, "what were you doing sneaking around the borders alone? Where is your escort? The heir of Hastur should have ridden up to the front gates, properly escorted, and asked to see me. I've never refused a welcome to anyone who comes here in peace! Do you think this is still a bandit fortress?"
Regis felt stung, all the more because he knew the old man was right. "My Lord, I felt there might be warfare of which I had been told nothing. If there is peace between us, what have you done with my sworn man?"
"/, young Hastur? I know of no man of yours. Who?"
"My paxman and my friend, Danilo Syrtis. He was taken by armed men, in the hills near his home, men bearing your ensign, my lord."
Aldaran's face narrowed in a frown. He glanced at the tall thin man in Terran clothing who stood near the head of the bed. He said, "Bob, do you know anything at all about this matter? You usually know what Beltran's up to. What's be been doing while I've been lying here sick?"