The next two or three nights of travel were duplicates of that one. We were blessed with good weather and there was no sign of pursuit. We slept by day, concealed hi herd-huts, but these were deserted. We had food enough, although we were almost always cold. Marjorie never complained, but I was desperately concerned about her. I could not imagine
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any woman I had ever known enduring such a journey. When I said so to Marjorie, she laughed.
"I am no pampered lowland lady, Lew, I am used to hard weather, and I can travel whenever I must, even in dead winter. Thyra would be a better companion, perhaps, she is hardened to long journeys with Bob, in and out of season ..." She fell silent, and quickly turned her face away. I kept silent. I knew how close she bad been to her sister and how she felt about this parting. It was the first time she spoke of her life at Castle Aldaran. It was also the last.
On the fourth or fifth morning we had to ride far into daylight to find any shelter at all. We were now in the wildest part of the mountains, and the roads had dwindled away to mere trails. Marjorie was dropping with weariness; I had half resolved that for once we must find a sheltered place in the woods and sleep in the open, when suddenly, riding into a small clearing, we came on a deserted farmstead.
I wondered how anyone had ever managed to farm these bleak hills, but there were outbuildings and a small stone house, a yard which had once been fenced, a well with wooden piping still splashing water into a broken stone trough in the year?all wholly deserted. I feared it had become the haunt of birds or bats, but when I forced the door open it was weathertight and almost clean.
The sun was high and warm. While I unsaddled Marjorie bad taken off her cloak and boots and was splashing her hands in the stone trough. She said, "I am past my first sleepiness, and I have not had my clothes off since we set out. I am going to wash; I think it will refresh me better than sleep." She was suiting action to words, pulling off her riding-skirt and fur-lined tunic, standing before me in her long heavy shift and petticoat. I came and joined her. The water was icy cold, coming straight down from a mountain spring above us, but it was marvelously refreshing. I marveled how Marjorie could stand barefoot in the last melting runnels of the last night's snowfall, but she seemed not as cold as I was. We sat in the growing warmth of the sun afterward, eating the last of the herdwomen's coarse bread. I found a tree in the yard where the former owners had fanned mushrooms, an intricate system of small wooden pipes directing water down the trunk. Most of the mushrooms were hard and woody, but I found a few small new ones high up, and we
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ate them at the end of our meal, savoring their sweet freshness.
She stretched a little, sleepily. "I would like to sleep here in the sun," she said. "I am beginning to feel like some night-bird, never coming out into the light of day."
"But I am not hardened to your mountain weather," I said, "and we may have to sleep in the open, soon enough."
She made a mock-serious face. "Poor Lew, are you cold? Yes, I suppose we must go inside to sleep." She gathered up our heavy outer clothes and carried them. She spread them out on an old, abandoned pallet in the farmhouse, wrinkling a fastidious nose at the musty smell. I said, "It is better than dog," and she giggled and sat down on the heap of clothing.
She had on a thick woolen shift, knee-length and with long sleeves; I had seen her far more lightly clothed at Aldaran, but there was something about being here like this that roused an awareness that fear and weariness had almost smothered. AH during this trip she had slept within the circle of my arm, but innocently. Perhaps because I was still recovering from the effects of Kadarin's brutal beating. Now, all at once, I was aware again of her physical presence. She felt it?we were lightly in rapport all the time now?and turned her face a little away, color rising along her cheekbones. There was a hint of defiance as she said, "Just the same, I am going to take down my hair and comb and braid it properly, before it gets tangled like Mhari's and I have to cut it off!" She raised her arms, pulled out the butterfly-shaped clasp that held her braids pinned at the nape of her neck, and began to unravel the long plaits.
I felt the hot flush of embarrassment. In the lowlands a sister who was already a woman would not have done this even before a grown brother. I had not seen Linnell's hair loose like this since we were little children, although when we were small I had sometimes helped her comb it. Did customs really differ so much? I sat and watched her move the ivory comb slowly through her long copper hair; it was perfectly straight, only waved a little from the braiding, and very fine, and the sun, coming in cracks through the heavy wooden shutters, set it all ablaze with the glint of the precious metal. I said at last, hoarsely, "Don't tease me, Marjorie. I'm not sure I can bear it."
She did not look up. She only said softly, "Why should you? I am here."
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I reached out and took the comb away from her, turning her face up to meet my eyes. "I cannot take you lightly, beloved. I would give you all honor and all ceremony."
"You cannot," she said, with the shadow of a small smile, "because I no longer ..." the words were coming slowly now, as if it were painful to speak them. "?no longer acknowledge Beltran's right to give me in marriage. My foster-father meant to give me to you. That is ceremony enough." Suddenly she spoke in a rush. "And I am not a Keeper now! I have renounced that, I will not keep myself separate from you, I will not, / will not!"
She was sobbing now. I flung the comb away and drew her into my arms, holding her to me with sudden violence.
"Keeper? No, no, never again," I whispered against her mouth. "Never, never again?"
What can I say? We were together. And we were in love.
Afterward I braided her hair for her. It seemed almost as intimate as lying down together, my hands trembling as they touched the silken strands, as they had when I first touched her. We did not sleep for a long time.
When we woke it was late and already snowing heavily. When I went to saddle the horses, the wind was whipping the snow in wild stinging needles across the yard. We could not ride in this. When I came inside again, Marjorie looked at me in guilty dismay.
"I delayed us. I'm sorry?"
"I think we are beyond pursuit now, preciosa. But we would only have had to turn back; we cannot ride in this. I'll put the horses into the outbuilding and give them some fodder."
"Let me come and help?"
"Don't go out hi the snow, beloved. I'll attend to the horses."
When I came in, Marjorie had kindled a fire on the long-dead hearth and, finding an old battered stone kettle discarded in a corner, had washed it, filled it at the well and put some of our dried meat to stew with the mushrooms. When I scolded her for going into the yard?in these snow-squalls men have been lost and frozen between their own barnyard and doorway?she said shyly, "I wanted us to have a fireside. And a ... a wedding-feast."
I hugged her close and said, "The minute he sees you my father will be delighted to arrange all that."
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"I know," she said, "but I'd rather have it here." The thought warmed me more than the fire. We ate the hot soup before the fire. We had to share one spoon and eat it straight from the old kettle. We had little fuel and the fire burned down quickly, but as it sank into darkness Marjorie whispered, "Our first fireside."
I knew what she meant. It was not the formal ceremony, di catenas, the elaborate wedding-feast for my kin, her proclamation before Comyn Council, that would make her my wife. Everywhere in the hills, where ceremonies are few and witnesses sparse, the purposeful sharing of "a bed, a meal, a fireside" acknowledges the legal status of a marriage, and I knew why Marjorie had risked losing her way in the snow to kindle a fire and cook us up some soup. By the simple laws of the hills, we were wedded, not in our own eyes alone, but in a ceremony that would stand in the eyes of all men. I was glad she had been
sure enough of me to do this
; without asking. I was glad the weather kept us here for another night. But something was troubling me. I said, "Regis and Danilo are nearer to Thendara now than we are to Ar-ilinn, unless they have been recaptured. But neither of them
: is a skilled telepath, and I doubt if a message has gone through. I should send a message, either to Arilinn or to my father. I should have done it before."
> She caught my hand as I pulled the matrix from its resting place. "Lew, is it really safe?"
"I must, love, safe or not. I should have done it the mo-
f ment I had my matrix back. We must face the possibility that
>' they will try again. Beltran won't abandon his aims so
; quickly, and I fear Kadarin is unscrupulous." I backed off from speaking the name of Sharra aloud, but it was there between us and we both knew it.
: And if they did try again, without my knowledge or control, without Marjorie for Keeper, what then? Playing with forest fire would be child's play, next to the risk of waking
/ that thing without a trained Keeper! I had to warn the towers.
She said hesitantly, "We were all in rapport. If you ... use your matrix ... can they feel it, trail us that way?"
That was a possibility, but whatever happened to us, Sharra must be controlled and contained, or none of us would ever be safe again. And in all these days I had sensed no touch, no seeking mind.
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I drew out the matrix and uncovered it. To my dismay, I felt a faint, twisting tinge of sickness as I gazed into the blue depths. That was a danger signal. Perhaps during the days I had been separated from it, I had become somewhat unkeyed. I focused on it, steadying my mind to the delicate task of establishing rapport again with the starstone; again and again I was forced to turn my eyes away by the pain, the blurring of vision.
"Leave it, Lew, leave it, you're too tired?'*
"I cannot." If I delayed, I would lose mastery of the matrix, be forced to begin again with another stone. I fought the matrix for nearly an hour, struggling with my inability to focus it. I looked at Marjorie with regret, knowing that I was draining my strength with this telepathic struggle. I cursed the fate that had made me a telepath and a matrix mechanic, but it never occurred to me that I should abandon the struggle unfinished.
If this had?unimaginably?happened in Arilinn, I would have been given kirian or one of the other psi-activator drugs and helped by a psi monitor and my own Keeper. Now I had to master it alone. I myself had made it impossible and dangerous for Marjorie to help me.
At last, my head splitting, I managed to focus the lights in the stone. Quickly, while I still had the strength, I reached out through the gray and formless spaces that we call the underworld, looking for the light-landmark that was the relay-circle at Arilinn.
For a moment I had it. Then, within the stone, there was a wild flaring flame, a rush of savage awareness, a too-familiar surge of fiery violence ... flames rising, the great form of fire blotting out consciousness ... a woman, dark and vital, bearing a living flame, a great circle of faces pouring out raw emotion. . . .
I heard Marjorie gasp, fought to break the rapport. Sharra! Sharra! We had been sealed to it, we were caught and drawn to the fires of destruction....
"No! No!" Marjorie cried aloud, and I saw the fires thin out and vanish. They had never been there. They were reflected in the dying coals of our ritual marriage-fire; the eerie edge of light around Marjorie's face was only the last firelight there. She whispered, trembling, "Lew, what was it?"
"You know," I hesitated to say the name aloud, "Kadarin. And Thyra. Working directly with the sword. Zandru's hells,
Marjorie, they are trying to use it the old way, not with a Keeper-controlled circle of telepaths in an orderly energon ring?and it's uncontrollable even that way, as we found out?but with a single telepath, focusing raw emotion from a group of untrained followers."
"Isn't that terribly dangerous?"
"Dangerous! The word's inadequate! Would you kindle a forest fire to cook your supper? Would you chain a dragon-fire to roast your chops or dry your boots? I wish I thought : they would only kill themselvesl"
?I I strode up and down by the dead fire, restlessly listening
?^ to the battering of the storm outside. "And I can't even warn them at Arilinn!"
"Why not, Lew?"
"So close to?to Sharra?my own matrix won't work," I said, and tried to explain how Sharra evidently blanked out smaller matrices.
"How far will that effect reach, Lew?"
"Who knows? Planet-wide, maybe. I've never worked with anything that strong. There aren't any precedents."
"Then, if it reached all the way to Arilinn, won't the tele-paths there know that something is wrong?"
I brightened. That might be our only hope. I staggered suddenly and she caught at my arm.
"Lew! You're worn out. Rest here by me, darling." I flung
myself down at her side, dizzy and despairing. I had not even
spoken of my other fears, that if I used my personal matrix,
v I, who had been sealed to Sharra, might be drawn back into
that vortex, that savage fire, that corner of hell....
She knew, without my saying it. She whispered, "I can feel
it reaching for us. ... Can it draw us back, back into itself?"
t] She clung to me in terror; I rolled over and took her to me,
holding her with savage strength, fighting an almost uncon-
';: trollable desire. And that frightened hell out of me. I should
:' be drained, spent, exhausted, incapable of the slightest sexual
impulse. That was frustrating, but it was normal, and I had
long since come to terms with it.
But this wild lust?and it was pure lust, a hateful dark animal thing with no hint of love or warmth?set my pulses racing, made me gasp and fight against it. It was too strong; I let it surge up and overwhelm me, feeling the fire burn up in my veins as if some scalding ichor had replaced the blood in
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my body. I smothered her mouth under mine, felt her weakly struggling to fight me away. Then the fire took us both.
It is the one memory I have of Marjorie which is not all joy. I took her savagely, without tenderness, trying to slake the burning need in me. She met me with equal violence, hating it equally, both of us gripped with that uncontrollable savage desperation. It was fierce and animal?no! Not animal! Animals meet cleanly, driven only by the life-force in them, knowing nothing of this kind of dark lust. There was no innocence in this, no love, only raw violence, insatiable, a bottomless pit of hell. It was hell, all the hell either of us would ever need to know. I heard her sobbing helplessly and knew I was weeping, too, with shame and self-hatred. Afterward we did not sleep.
Chapter TWENTY-ONE
Even at Nevarsin, Regis thought, it had never snowed so hard, or so persistently. His pony picked its way deliberately along, following in the steps of Danilo's mount, as mountain horses were trained to do. It was snowing again.
He wouldn't mind any of it, he thought, the riding, the cold or the lack of sleep, if he could see properly, or keep the world straight under him.
The threshold sickness had continued off and on, more on than off in the last day or so. He tried to ignore Danilo's anxious looks, his concern for him. There wasn't anything Danilo could do for him, so the less said about it, the better.
But it was intensely unpleasant. The world kept thinning away at irregular intervals and dissolving. He had had no attacks as bad as the one he'd had at Thendara or on the way north, but he seemed to live in mild chronic disorientation all the time. He didn't know which was worse, but suspected it was whichever form he happened to have at the time.
Danilo waited
for him to draw even on the path. "Snowing already, and it's hardly midafternoon. At this rate it will take us a full twelve days to reach Thendara, and well lose the long start we had."
The more quickly they reached Thendara, the better. He knew a message must get through, even if Lew and Marjorie were recaptured. So far there was no sign of pursuit But Regis knew, cursing his own weakness, that he could not take much more of the constant exertion, the long hours in the saddle and the constant sickness.
Earlier that day they had passed through a small village, where they had bought food and grain for the horses. Perhaps they could risk a fire tonight?if they could find a place to build it!
"Anything but a hay-barn," Danilo agreed. The last night they had slept in a barn, sharing warmth with several cows
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and horses and plenty of dry hay. The animals had made it a warm place to sleep, but they could not risk a fire or even a light, with the tinder-dry hay, so they had eaten nothing but hard strips of cured meat and a handful of nuts.
"We're in luck," Danilo said, pointing. Away to the side of the road was one of the travel-shelters built generations ago, when Aldaran bad been the seventh Domain and this road had been regularly traveled in all seasons. The inns had all been abandoned, but the travel-shelters, built to stand for centuries, were still habitable, small stone cabins with attached sheds for horses and proper amenities for travelers.
They dismounted and stabled their horses, hardly speaking, Regis from weariness, Danilo from reluctance to intrude on him. Dani thought he was angry, Regis sensed; he knew he should tell his friend he was not angry, just tired. But he was reluctant to show weakness. He was Hastur: it was for him to lead, to take responsibility. So he drove himself relentlessly, the effort making his words few and sharp, his voice harsh. It only made it worse to know that if he had given Danilo the slightest encouragement, Dani would have waited on him hand and foot and done it with pleasure. He wasn't going to take advantage of Danflo's hero-worship. The Comyn had done too much of that.... The horses settled for the night, Danilo carried the saddlebags inside. Pausing on the threshold, he said, "This is the interesting time, every night. When we see what the years have left of whatever place we've found to stay.**
"It's interesting, all right," Regis said dryly. "We never know what well find, or who'll share our beds with us." One night they had had to sleep in the stables, because a Jiest of deadly scorpion-ants had invaded the shelter itself.