Margaret felt helpless for a second. She had never learned knife fighting, just the sort of defensive maneuvers she had used on the bandit. Then she picked out Rafaella's slender form near the fire, struggling to keep a tall robber from stabbing her. And that brought the fury back instantly. She started forward, stepping over the dead body of the first attacker, not sure what she was going to do.
Her throat seemed thick, heavy with energy, and she tried to swallow. But her mouth was very dry, and she did not succeed. Behind her, she heard the rapid footfalls of the man who had not attacked her moving away as quickly as he could. She licked her lips and took another hesitant step toward the melee.
"STOP!" The word came from her heavy throat, startling her. Her forehead throbbed, as if her skull might burst apart at any second, and her eyes felt blurry.
Then her vision cleared, and Margaret saw that there was no movement before her. It looked as if everyone had turned to stone. The horses nickered uneasily, and one of the mules brayed, but everything else was silent. Part of her mind was stunned, but the rest noticed that her command had not affected the horses or the mules.
Dazed by this turn of events, Margaret stared stupidly at the tableau. Then she managed to swallow, and realized that she had once again used the Voice, that peculiar aspect of the Alton Gift which allowed her to command the minds of others. It did not always occur in the Alton line, but it seemed that her training as a musician had strengthened the innate talent.
She should have felt relief. Instead Margaret realized that she still had no idea how to undo her command. Her studies at Arilinn had not dealt with the Voice, although she and Liriel had discussed it a few times, and tried to discover ways to discipline it. No one at Arilinn was interested in anything except her telepathic capacities of enforced rapport, so that she would not inadvertently invade the minds of others. She had used the Voice once before, again without intention, when young Donal had awakened her from sleep, and it had taken the combined efforts of her father, Jeff Kerwin, Mikhail, and Liriel to remedy the problem.
Margaret did not give a fig for the bandits—if they froze to death, it was no more than they deserved. But Rafaella and the rest of the Renunciates, as well as the trader, were another matter altogether. She had to think of some way to release them, and soon. Standing about in the cold was going to kill all of them if she didn't think of something quickly.
Her feet were turning to ice under her, and she was starting to shiver. Margaret strode back into the camp, toward the fire. She tossed a brand into it, and the embers flared: At the same time, she tried to think of what to do.
When she had commanded that rascal Donal, she had said "Get out," and he had vacated his small, young body, and gone into the over-world. But here she had only said "Stop", so it seemed likely that she had not sent anyone away to that dreadful place where she had found the Tower of Mirrors, and defeated the shade of Ashara Alton months before. This, Margaret decided, was good. Now, if she could only think what to do.
She touched Rafaella's extended arm lightly, and found her friend was cool, but not yet cold. Like Margaret, she was not wearing her boots, and she would soon grow chill. Certainly her toes would get frostbitten if she stood there too much longer. Then she tried to move the arm, and discovered that it was not stiff, but it was resistant. Margaret shook her friend by the shoulder. "Wake up, Rafi!"
There was no response, and Rafaella still stood, staring at her opponent, her face grim and purposeful. Margaret frowned. Perhaps she had to use the Voice to undo her handiwork. But how? She did not know how to summon the command voice—it only seemed to function when she
was frightened or upset, not when she needed it. What a useless thing!
Why hadn't all those clever folks at Arilinn instructed her how to utilize the Voice? Or how not to! All her resentment at the hostility she had endured began to boil up again, fresh and vital. Had there been anything in the ancient records she had read that might help?
As Margaret racked her brains, she felt the blue lines that lay across her left hand begin to warm. She looked down. They were like crackles of electricity across her skin, not painful but disturbing. For just a second she wondered if she could arouse the sleepers by touching them with her matrixed hand. Then she remembered how the robber had died, and decided she did not know enough about her matrix to risk that. No one did, which was the heart of the problem.
She stamped her feet, trying to keep the chill from distracting her. The cold was penetrating her clothing, and she wished she had her cloak on. She did not want to take the time to fetch it. She wanted an answer, and she wanted it now! She might experiment on the bandits, of course. It would serve the bastards right if she fried them! She enjoyed that thought for a second, then dismissed it almost reluctantly. I am not that bloodthirsty—or am I?
What had happened before, to provoke the Voice? She tried to remember the few moments before she had shouted. Her throat had felt thick with power. Could she do that deliberately?
Margaret focused her mind, as they had shown her at Arilinn, and thought only of her throat. Much to her surprise, she felt the muscles tighten, and the lines around her hand felt different. How? She tried to analyze the sensation, for the lines were, if anything, cooler than a moment before, not hotter, as she had expected. But her throat was warm, nearly hot, as if she had an unswallowed coal just below her larynx.
"Wake up, Rafaella!" Margaret spoke the words without much hope.
"What?" The Renunciate blinked, stared at the knife in her callused hand, then looked around the camp.
Margaret was too busy feeling relieved to speak. Then she hurried over to the closest of the rest of the Renunci-
ates, and told her to wake up as well. The woman did, groaning as blood began to course down her arm. She had been wounded by a knife, though the man who had injured her was dead at her feet.
"Quick, Rafaella—Samantha has been hurt!" Margaret left the bleeding woman, and went swiftly toward Daniella and Andrea, who were croached in defensive stances, facing three bandits. She was terrified that she would lose the Voice, so she needed to hurry and wake up all her companions. She moved rapidly from one to another, hardly aware that she was shivering all over. The trader, Rakiel, was the last, and he looked at her, dazed.
"What in Zandru's hells is going on?" Daniella bellowed these words, staring at the still immobile bandits, her cheeks red with fury. Her eyes almost sparkled in the firelight.
Margaret stood in silence as the trader rose to his feet. She was too tired to explain anything, suddenly empty of rage or fear or any emotion whatever. Daniella was glaring at her, bristling. There was a question in her eyes, and cold suspicion. And all Margaret had the strength to do was lift her hands into the cold air, and shrug slightly. Then, realizing that her oddly marked left hand was now bare, she tucked it behind her back, out of sight.
A great emptiness rose in her breast, and she swayed back and forth. Distantly, Margaret was aware of movement around her. She knew that the Renunciates were dispatching the bandits with complete efficiency, and that somehow it was her fault that they were helpless to defend themselves. She did not want to think about it, but she found herself doing just that, in spite of her efforts.
Rafaella was bandaging Samantha's arm. There was nothing left for her to do. Margaret turned and stumbled back into the tent and collapsed on her bedding, still trembling. She looked down at her hand, where a few minute before blue lines had danced over the skin, and hated herself. She wanted to cut off her hand, to just hack it off, and let the blood drain from her body.
At Arilinn, they had warned her of this. She knew, intellectually, that she was having a reaction to using her laran, a kind of instant depression. When working in a circle, in a safe environment, this reaction did not occur. But she
could not work in a circle! All she could do was fry bandits without intention. She felt her self-hatred like a physical object, a thing she wished to be free of. And it all centered on t
he shadow matrix.
If only she had not wrested the keystone from Ashara's Tower in the overworld. If only Mikhail had not urged her to pull it out, had not wrapped phantom arms around her waist and lent his weight to her struggle. This was all his fault!
The utter foolishness of that thought began to restore her spirits, as thinking of Mikhail always did, even when she wanted to box his ears for being particularly obstinate and Darkovan. If she had not taken the keystone, then the Tower would have continued to exist, and she would likely have died. She was alive, and while she was not entirely glad of it, she decided it was better to be alive, even despairing, than dead.
Rafaella stuck her head through the tent opening. "Get those wet stockings off. You are going to catch your death!" She pushed into the tent and started to remove her own, reaching for a dry pair that had been part of her pillow.
Dry socks. The idea seemed ludicrous. How could she be thinking about her stockings when she had just been responsible for the deaths of numerous men, even if they were brigands. What did it matter if she got pneumonia and died? It would be better for everyone—well, not for her father or Mikhail. The Old Man would be devastated, and he would never forgive himself, since she would not have been on the way to Neskaya except for his influence.
Margaret reached to her pillow clumsily, and pulled out dry socks and another silken mitt. In the dim light of the tent, this one looked green, and the one on her right was blue. She really ought to make them match, but she did not have the strength. Instead, she tugged off her sodden stockings, pulled on fresh ones, and wiggled her toes against the warm fabric. Then she drew the mitt over her left hand.
Her bottom was cold, from falling into the snow, and she realized that she needed to change clothes. But she felt too tired to move, and just watched Rafaella. Then the
Renunciate pulled other boots and stood up. "I am going to go help haul the bodies," she announced, and left.
Haul the bodies. The phrase seemed to bounce around in Margaret's skull, a cold stone of pain and terror. Two of those bodies were men she had killed. One she had burned alive! And there was no way to change that fact. She was going to have to live with it. But she would never tell anyone what she had done. It had been too simple, too quick and alarmingly easy. And if she had not managed to rouse the Renunciates, she would have killed them as well.
Grim-lipped, she removed her damp skirt, put on another, and then sat and listened to the activity beyond the walls of her tent. She could hear the slushing sound of bodies being dragged across the thin crust of snow, the voices of the women and the trader. Then she heard a slight wooshing noise, and suddenly the interior of the tent seemed very bright. They were burning the bodies. The smell of scorching flesh and garments drifted on the breeze, foul and vile.
Margaret slipped under the covers, shivering. She was hungry, ravenous, but she knew that she would spew up anything she ate right then. She bent her arm and pillowed her head against it, staring into the flashing light from the bandit pyre through the fabric of the tent. If L learn nothing else, I am going to find a way to control the Voice! To hell with this abomination in my hand, and the Alton Gift. But I will never use the Voice again without knowing what I am doing! Never, I swear it! Weak with horror, hunger and cold, Margaret tossed for a time, then slipped into a fitful sleep.
Two afternoons later, they arrived in the town of Neskaya. The sun of Darkover was setting, coloring the heavy clouds a bloody pink, and the town itself was already quiet. They passed houses with candlelight flickering through the few windows, and saw people hurrying on various errands.
Margaret stared up at Neskaya Tower, its white stones limned a rosy color by the lowering sun. Even at this distance, she could sense the presence of matrix relays behind the stones. She had never thought she would be glad to see any Tower, but since their encounter with the bandits, her
companions, except Rafaella, had been edgy around her, wary. She had refused to explain anything, stubbornly retreating into silence, and that had not helped the situation. She did not want to admit that she had the command voice, for while the Renunciates had known she was the heiress to the Alton Domain, and that she was going to the Tower, they knew nothing more about her.
There was a spacious inn, and the company headed for it. Margaret drew her weary horse aside. "I think I had better go right to the Tower, Rafaella."
Her friend sighed. "Yes, you should. But I will take you. It only looks easy to get to. The streets wind around like noodles, and you could easily get lost." She dismounted, unhitched one of the mules from the train, and got back on her horse.
They rode away without bidding farewell to anyone, and Margaret could sense the relief in her former trailmates. She did not blame them a bit. Even though they had been born into a telepathic society, and accepted laran as a natural thing, they could not view what had happened on the trail without uneasiness. But it was a sad thing, for she liked the strong, independent women and had been on the way to making friends with some of them before they had encountered the bandits.
Margaret was grateful that the terrible events on the trail had not changed Rafaella's feelings toward her. She could sense that her first Darkovan friend still cared for her, still trusted and liked her. And she knew that Rafaella had refused to tell her sisters anything, for she had heard her saying that it was Marguerida's business, not theirs, in her fiercest voice. The loyalty of this woman eased the bleakness that had clung to her for the past two days, touched her tenderly. She wished that Rafi could remain with her in Neskaya, then decided that would not be fair. She was not some family retainer, but a free woman, with her own life to pursue.
Margaret sensed her own bitterness. Rafaella could do as she pleased, could' enter into a freemate relationship with Rafe Scott if she wished. But she—Margaret—could not. She could not marry whom she wished, or live as she chose. She was the heiress to the Alton Domain, a telepath with an unusual focus of power, and her life was not her own,
so long as she remained on Darkover. And, in her heart, she knew that she could never leave the planet, that she could not return to University, or anywhere else. She was too dangerous, and even if she learned to control her strange matrix, she would still be a very dangerous person. More, if the Terrans ever got even a sniff of what she could do, untrained as she was, they would lock her up in some laboratory and pick her to pieces. She sighed deeply, decided that she was working herself into a really wretched mood, and tried to think of something pleasant. When she could not, she just looked around, trying to conjure up some curiosity about this new place.
The streets were narrow, even narrower than those in Thendara, as if the folk there crowded together for warmth and companionship, against the mountains above them, and the snows. The shop signs were not hung out from the buildings, as they were in Thendara, but were set against the faces of the structures, and she guessed that the wind here was more fierce and would have pulled them away. She saw a luthier's sign on one house, and a weaver's shuttle carved on another. Rafaella led the way, guiding the mule which had Margaret's baggage on it, and she brought up the rear.
But at last the way widened, and Margaret moved her horse ahead, so she could ride beside her friend. "I am sorry about all this," she began, uncomfortably.
"Sorry for saving my life? Really, Marguerida, for a smart woman, you can be a real idiot sometimes."
"Guilty as charged."
They both laughed, and the tension that had existed between them for two days vanished. "You did what you needed to, and so did we. Believe me, killing those bandits was not a thing we wanted to do. It was hard, but it was also needful."
"Rafaella, I killed a man—broke his neck, I think. And I burned another alive. I never killed anyone before, and never thought I would. It makes me feel all hollow inside. And the only reason I did not awaken the rest of the robbers was that I was terrified they would attack us again. So I'm responsible for killing them, too, even though it was your swords that did
the actual. . . ."
"Marguerida, stop berating yourself. You did what you
had to do, to protect yourself and the rest of us, and we are all grateful, if a little disturbed."
"I keep smelling their bodies burning."
"So do I! We were all disgusted, for to kill a man when he cannot defend himself is against everything we believe in. Daniella went off and puked for half an hour, after we got the pyre burning. But you will be safe and sound in the Tower in very soon, and you can forget all about this."
"Ran—I don't think I will ever be able to forget what happened, if I live to be a hundred."
Rafaella sighed deeply. "No, you probably won't. None of us will, even if, someday, one of us makes a song of it." Then her familiar laugh rang out. "But, Marguerida, it was . . . spectacular! I mean, I have had more than a few adventures on the trail, but nothing so remarkable. I can't help it. Seeing you ..."
"What?"
The Renunciate seemed embarrassed now. "Before you spoke—I just caught a glimpse, since I was busy trying to stay alive. I saw you with the horses, and I watched you— well, kept getting peeks—flame that fellow. You shone! You were covered in blue light for just a moment, and it was . . . magnificent! Even with all the horror, I never saw anything so remarkable in my life!"
Margaret was stunned. "Did the others . . .?" #
"They got a few impressions, yes. And they were not as thrilled as I was, to be sure. But they won't gossip about it because they don't want to be thought mad."