Could I endure the forcible breaking of all my barriers? I had closed off those old areas, years ago, to save my sanity. I dropped that line of thought. I had to endure it, simply because I was stronger than she.
Her touch was uncertain, fumbling, raw--an agony. It was desperately hard to keep from flinging her out of my brain; but with grim self-command, I endured it, lowering each barrier as she touched it. How had she come to be Keeper, if she was as clumsy a telepath as this? The bridge was stronger now, but she had not made the decisive move that would snap identity and bring it to completion; and I dared not move.
But it was so close to complete that I grew tense with the unbearable need to, have it done, even if it killed us both. Force flows toward the weaker pole. I, who had chosen the passive part, was overloaded to the limit of endurance. I could neither see nor hear her now. If I made a move to end the torture, I could burn us both out. But if this did not end soon, I must risk it, even to the release of death.
Then the shock, the numbing flare of contact-Regis/
Unbelievably, for a single unendurable moment, we--I-- it fused into an impossible triple rapport. The load of emotion was terrible, breaking down every barrier in each brain, and our three minds went into one great glare of force, too vast and too searingly painful to comprehend.-
Groping for sanity, I forced the rapport apart. We were three separate people again. Then, as blinding physical pain forced itself on me, Regis was incredibly there in the room with us, and he caught me as I pitched forward in a dead faint.
"Damn it, this is getting to be a habit," I said shakily. I was lying on the bed again, Regis and Callina looking down at me anxiously. Regis pressed my hand as I sat up. "You've been doing all the hard work," he said.
"What happened?"
"Don't you know? How did I get here, anyway?" He swallowed convulsively and turned to Callina. Although we were deep in rapport, our conscious thoughts had dropped apart and I could not tell what they were thinking. But three! Even the Altons could link only two, and that with infinite danger! THREE!
Regis said, "What happened to us? I only know that something exploded in me--then it broke up, and I thought you were dead, Lew. I couldn't think of anything but to get to you and Dio. I didn't even know where you were, I was frantic, then all of a sudden I was here, and you pitched off the bed, and I grabbed you," he finished blankly.
"Callina and I had tried to link minds in focus--"
"Callina?" Regis stared. Callina suddenly stood on tiptoe and put her lips lightly against his. "Regis," she said softly, "we aren't resentful. We can--make room for you."
Regis put his arms around the girl and held her. "Doesn't he know? Not even now?"
"I've always been barricaded," she said.
Regis let her go, turning abruptly to me. "Now that we're aware, and guarded, let's set,up contact again and see what this thing is, and what kind of power we have with it. As far as I know, this is something pretty new, and almost unique."
Callina reached out and made the linkage; this time there was no hesitation or fumbling, and I glanced at her with a surge of possessive pride. Regis, rather'red about the ears, looked round.
If you two are going to think things like that at each other, his thought twisted humorously into ours, I'd better drop out!
Then the circle of contact was complete. Yet, strangely, the personal barriers were back, intact. We could work as one, at the deep levels; but identity remained inviolate, and privacy. We were three separate personalities; only for the first fusion was there that searing down of emotions, of barricades.
Yet there was a sympathy, a togetherness that was extremely pleasant. It was as if all my Me I had been getting along with a third of my brain.
Three telepaths, though not in rapport, had been needed to handle the Sharra matrix. This deep linkage, made through the living matrix of Aldones, was our weapon. Regis was the sword blade. Mine was the strength behind the sword; the Alton Gift, that hyper-developed psychokinetic nerve, was the hand to direct that striking force. And Callina, locked between hand and blade, was the sword hilt; the necessary insulation.
Yes, there was symbolism in concealing these things in a sword. Regis and I, Hastur and Alton--sword and hand-could never join power to strength without exhaustion, nerve depletion and death--unless Callina were between us. The explanation swam up from somewhere in our linked minds. Comyn race-memory, perhaps, for they were not conscious memories. And Regis himself was the focus, the energy-source, the matrix if you will, through which, by means of the talisman sword, we could tap the energy-source and power of Aldones. Son of Hastur who was the son of Light--we stood close to what my race called a God.
My acquired knowledge knew this was a rational thing, science, mechanical and explainable; but there was a residue I could not explain. The feel of an actual living entity behind the Sword obsessed me.
I had felt the daemon-touch of Sharra. This was not evil--and somehow, that frightened me more. Infinite good is as terrifying as infinite evil.
But I was still physically weak, and Regis (Guard your strength, Lew, you will need it soon!) dissolved the linkage. I almost regretted it; a man's mind is a fearfully lonely place. Yet I could not have borne much more.
Regis touched Callina's arm. "Don't wait too long," he warned, and went away.
I feared that she, too, would withdraw; but, still tentative, she remained in contact, an immeasurable comfort. Her fingers laced in mine; closer yet was the delicate caress of her thoughts, and as I lay there, my face resting against her knees, I felt again a familiar, cool sweetness. The women tangled again in my thoughts, like the prism facets of a jewel.
How long the interval lasted I have no idea, but with a suddenness terrific in its impact, we both felt Regis, a desperate clamor in our minds, and knew that he had unsheathed the Sword.
And even as that warning rang out, space reeled, and we were flung together into the great courtyard of the Comyn Castle. Before us Regis stood, braced and erect, and in his hand the Sword of Aldones--live, shimmering blue from hilt to point. I caught my breath, and Callina cried out, a strange wordless cry; then she reached out, drew our three hands together on the sword-hilt and we were ONE.
Through my suddenly-extended senses, I made out, at the far end of the court, a wavering black mist through which pulsed strange flame. Sharra's fires! Hell-fires! I sensed, rather than saw, the other triad there;
Kadarin, Thyra, and Dyan Ardais.
The sight maddened me. For an instant I was one person again, and I leaped at Dyan, pulling out of the linkage. But as I touched him the blue lightning exploded, and we were flung apart; for Kadarin faced Regis, the Sharra sword naked in his hands.
But this time the swords did not short-circuit in flames. I was aware of a luminous mist that surged from the Sword of Aldones; wrapped Regis in a rainbow aurora,,glowed like a cape around Callina's shoulders, folded me in lucent brilliance. It licked out at the darkness that was Sharra. And in that dark center, like figures of smoke, Kadarin and Dyan and Thyra pulsed with the beating heart of the Thing they had evoked.
Darkness, comet-shot with the lightning that flared from the matrix-swords, crossing and recrossing. It was not Regis and Kadarin fighting with identically forged swords. It was not even matrix warring against spacetwisting matrix, or linked minds against linked minds. No. Something tangible and alive and intelligent fought behind them. Regis and Kadarin were only the poles of their power. The real forces were not warring in this world at all, or the planet would have been torn from its orbit and sent reeling through the dark night of space forever.
But enough projected here to be dangerous. Kadarin, beaten back, snatched hastily at his belt; with a quick, deadly flick, his knife flashed, and I was so much a part of Regis that for a moment I did not know whether it had struck him or myself. Only the deadly searing pain in my heart, and I felt, not saw, the Sword of Aldones drop from a limp hand. Regis slipped to the paving-stones. But he was still par
t of the linkage; as Kadarin drew himself upright, I lunged to grip the Sword of Aldones. Using it--only as a sword now--I drove the point through Kadarin's heart. He fell without, a cry. Sharra's matrix-sword clattered on the pavement. I wrenched the Sword of Aldones free. It was over.
The luminous haze coiled up; the black mist pulsed and weakened, linkages broken. Then, abruptly, I leaped back for Regis was incredibly on his feet again. He caught the Sword of Aldones from my hand. There was a stain of blood on his shirt, but he seemed unwounded; untouched. The threefold linkage snapped together again. Behind us, Callina stood, blazing at Thyra with a strange terrible intense stare. Thyra, too, stood locked, intent, motionless. None of us had uttered a single sound since the cry that had announced our coming.
A slim, girlish form burst suddenly from an opened door and ran madly, as if compelled, toward Dyan. Kathie! A few inches short of where he stood, she stopped, digging in her heels in panic terror; but Dyan caught her about the waist with one arm and snatched up the Sharra-sword. Kathie screamed. She had been immune; but now, my block withdrawn from her mind, her blindness to Darkovan forces was withdrawn. Linnell's duplicate--with Linnell's powers. Dyan forced her savagely into the Sharra triad. Kathie and Dyan and Thyra seemed almost to coalesce, to flow together.
The Sword of Aldones stirred like a live thing. Then Callina flung up her free arm and with all the concentrated force of a Comyn Keeper, wrenched Thyra out of the Sharra triad. It was only telepathic contact; not our deeply-molded rapport. I saw the lightning blast over Dyan, beat at him, and Callina's cry rang in my brain.
"Now, Lew! Now!"
Desperately, a bare chance, I forced a wedge between Dyan and his pawn. Kadarin had been taken so far into Sharra that he could not withdraw. Hate Dyan as he would and did, they were sealed together. But Thyra might be still vulnerable. I sent, frantically, one thought to Thyra.
Marja! Marja is dead! Dyan killed her!
Thyra moved like a striking snake. She wrenched the Sharra matrix from Dyan's hand; and with all the fury and rage and concentrated power of a mind trained by Kadarin, turned on him. And all the concentrated force of my Alton Gift struck through her as I, once sealed to Sharra, turned that full force-flow on Dyan.
And I saw Dyan crumple, shrivel and fall to the pavement, his mind thinned and gone. Stone dead.
The black mist pulsed like a heartbeat. It was trying to draw me into it! For a moment Regis and Kathie were flung out of the triads and for a moment it was threefold; Thyra, in Sharra; Callina, in Aldones; and I, pole of power, caught between them in that terrible struggle.
But our threefold linkage was stronger; the link broke and I was free of Thyra--and Sharra. In the storms of living light Callina and I moved close, Callina's hand insulating Regis' hand from mine on sword hilt, her mind guarding us one from the other. If Regis and I had directly touched minds, if we had even physically touched hands, the power would have seared us to cinders.
The pulsing black mist swept back, gathering itself for fresh assault, coagulating around Thyra and the dead men.
And Kadarin rose!
He was dead. He must have been dead. Yet horribly, with the galvanic movements of a strung puppet, he rose. I saw the blackness shake itself as three hands met on Sharra's hilt. Fire-colors gleamed in its depth, and there was a tall shining in the black mist, that swept on us. The three shadows twisted like smoke. Then, through the darkness, the face looked out. The face I had seen on the black night when terror walked in the Comyn and Linnell died.
But this time I knew what it was.
Long before Ashara, the Keeper, a further Keeper--a woman, born a Hastur, with the living matrix inherent in body and brain--had forged a matrix which should duplicate the powers of the Sword of Aldones. Two identical matrices cannot exist in one space and one time; and Sharra, Keeper of the Hasturs, had thrust herself outside this world.
Yet the matrix, not the living matrix of her brain, but the talisman matrix of the Sharra sword, remained here; and gave her a foothold in this world, through which she could be summoned when telepaths of certain skill should call her forth. Changed as she was, she still had power. And they called her daemon, Goddess.
But Sharra had been bound once, by the Son of Hastur. So ran the legend Ashara had repeated. Now another Son of Hastur, braced to endure the force by a rapport of three
Comyn minds, held the Aldones matrix, intent on forcing her back again.
And under that power, space twisted and opened worlds reeled; Kathie was thrust back first, through the interlocking universes, to her own place from which we had snatched her. And in one thing, at least, the balance was restored.
Now Thyra and Kadarin, alone, together, held that focus of Sharra's power. They called me to them! I, once sealed to Sharra, wavered and bent like a candle in the wind toward that monstrous thing I had helped, years ago, to summon. I caught desperately at Callina to steady my hold.
Callina faltered. The strength of Aldones' power ceased; again the confusion, while lightning danced at the heart of the black flame where the Face of Sharra stared out horribly and beautifully between the reeling worlds.
Callina was-GONE!
Only Ashara's cold, only Ashara's icy nothingness, thinned against the eternities of space. I felt the triad of Aldones dissolve. Despairing, I felt myself drawn toward the ravenous maw of Sharra…
Then, between a breath and a breath, there was a sharp shattering, as if a crystal broke under a cruel touch, and Callina was there again; I felt her strength, freed, cool and delicate, locking me to Regis again. Held steady. The blue lightning surged up, and our tripled brain was forged, suddenly, and welded, into a Cup. And into the Cup of Power flowed a force and a glory.
Regis seemed to grow taller, to take on height and majesty and the cloak of blue light lapped his limbs.
And clothed in his cloak of living light Aldones camel
Like a white spark I could see the Sharra matrix, blazing out through the metal of the sword that held it. Pointing straight at the coruscating light that circled Regis like a diadem.
Once, I think, Kadarin might have held Sharra's power completely, and conquered. Nerves and body and brain--it was hardly sure at the last which was man, which matrix.
But Kadarin was human; and at the end, when his sustaining hate of me had faded, I think there was something in him which broke and played traitor; which made him will for self-destruction; which broke Sharra and made the Thing vulnerable.
Two identical matrices cannot exist in one space. While separate 'brains controlled them, they were non identical enough to remain, though the stress-conditions put the ground of battle in a little place outside space and time. But Sharra's instrument had broken first. I knew, because for a moment everything that was weak or evil in me fought with Sharra, and for a moment, at the end, I was one with Kadarin and Thyra again, back in the old days. All the immense strength and courage of Kadarin, all Thyra's beauty, generosity, grace, before the alien horror strangled her womanhood, these fought for Sharra too.
Then the face dimmed to a wraith; Kadarin and Thyra, two tiny, separating ghosts, were flung into each other's arms, and for a moment I saw them clinging together, silhouetted against the dissolving mist and fires. Then they were swept away, as Sharra's ghost-face vanished into some reeling hell of darkness, and with it went Thyra and Kadarin, somewhere, somewhere…
Aldones! Lord of the Singing Light! Is there mercy for them, too?
Then that, too, was gone, and I, Lew Alton, was kneeling in the damp dawnlit courtyard, arms around Callina, before a shaking, trembling boy holding a sword from which all the lights had faded. And there was no sign of Kadarin or of Thyra or of Kathie. Dyan lay dead, a blackened corpse, on the scorched paving-stones. And in his hand the Sharra sword lay broken, a few shattered pieces of metal. There was no matrix now in the hilt of the sword. The hilt, blackened with fire, was dull and grayed, and the jewels lay scattered on the stones. The first rays of the red sun touched the cas
tle turrets, and seemed to tremble for a moment in the heart of the jewels.
They shimmered, evaporated like bright spots of blue dew--and were gone. The sword of Sharra was broken--and the power of Sharra was broken in this world, forever.
Regis still held the Sword of Aldones. He was white, and trembling as if with deadly cold. Then, slowly, he sheathed the Sword. A flowing peace seemed to radiate from him, enlacing us in its net. The Sharra matrix had made Kadarin, who was not a bad man or a weak one, into a friend. The Sword of Aldones had made Regis--what?
"Regis--" My lips were stiff on the sound of his name, "What are you?"
"Hastur," he said gravely.
But the legend said Sharra was bound in chains by the son of Hastur, who was the son of Aldones, who was the son of Light.
He turned away and walked toward the archway. His face was the face of a God, at that moment, yet something less--and more. Supreme content… and awful loneliness. Then that, too, dimmed out, and it was only a grave young man's face, the face of one doomed to walk forever with the memory of an hour's godhead--and be forevermore denied it
The rising sun touched his hair-, snow white.
He disappeared through the arched door.
And I saw Dio Ridenow walking from the Keeper's Tower, slowly, dazed, like a woman in a dream. Now' when it was over--but I had no thoughts for Dio, for Callina had risen, and drew me to my feet.
And for the first time without fear, I took Callina in my arms, crushing my mouth to hers.
And all desire died as I looked into the cold eyes of Ashara.
I should have known, all along.
* * *
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Only a moment and it was Callina again, clinging to me, crying; but I had seen, and I knew. My arm fell and I stared in horror as she turned away, desolately. "Sharra," I heard her whisper, "Sharra… Then it was no use, no use for me, and I cannot live…"