The Sword of Aldones

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

So the Sword of Aldones was a real sword, after all; long and gleaming and deadly, and of so fine a temper that it made my own look like a child’s leaden toy. In the hilt, through a thin layer of insulating silk, winking jewels gleamed blue.

It might have been a duplicate of the Sharra sword, but that now seemed an inferior forgery of the glorious thing I held.

This was not a concealment for a hidden matrix; rather it was a matrix. It seemed to have a life of its own. A tingle of power, not unpleasant, flowed up my arm. I gripped the hilt and drew it a little way—

“No,” Callina said warningly, and gripped my hand. A moment, stubborn, I resisted; then slid it back into the sheath.

“That’s that,” I said harshly. “Let’s get out of here.”

Dawn was breaking over the lake when we came out, and the wet sunlight glinted, ominously, on steel. Kathie cried out, in terror, as three men stepped toward us.

Three men? No; two — and a woman. Kadarin, Dyan — and between them, slim and vital as a dark flame, Thyra Scott smiled up at me, her mocking mouth daring me to speak or strike. I caught the dagger from my belt. Thyra stood steady, her naked throat upturned to the steel.

My hand tilted and the knife fell from it.

“Get out of my way, witch!”

Her low, fey laughter raised a million ghosts, but her voice was steel. “What have you done with my daughter?”

“My daughter,” I said. “She’s safe. But you can’t have her.”

Dyan took a step, but Kadarin took his elbow and hauled him back. “Wait, you.”

Thyra said, “We will bargain. Give me what the Keeper holds, and you go free.”

“We will anyhow,” I said.

Kadarin drew his sword. I should have known; it was the one bearing the Sharra matrix. “Will you?” he asked softly. “Better hand it over. I intend to kill you, but you couldn’t give me a fair fight, not now.” His eyes swept, with gentle contempt, from my bandaged head to my feet. “Don’t try.”

“I suppose you have Trailmen in hiding with your usual odds of twenty to one?”

Kadarin nodded. “They won’t touch you. You’re for me. But the women—”

“Go to hell,” I snarled, and, flashing the sword from the sheath, I flung myself at Kadarin. The touch of the hilt poured that stream of overflowing life through me; the blood beat so hard in my temples that I was faint with it. Kadarin whipped up the Sharra sword. The swords-touched—

The Sword of Aldones blazed blue fire! Like a living thing it leaped from my hand and clattered down, coruscating blue fire from hilt to point. The two swords lay crossed on the ground, streams of wild blue flame cascading about them. Kadarin was reeling.

I picked myself up. We stood back, neither daring to approach the fallen blades.

But Kathie darted between us and caught up both swords. To her, I think, they were only swords. She held one in either hand, carefully. The blue flames died.

“That won’t help,” Kadarin said, and added grimly, “Don’t be a self-sacrificing fool. Give me the Sharra matrix and go. We couldn’t take the Sword of Aldones, maybe. But we can take the Sharra one, and we will. You could kill me, kill Dyan, kill Thyra — but you can’t kill them all!”

Of course there was no choice. I had the women to guard. “Give it to him, Kathie,” I said at last. This was only a draw. The real fight would come later.

“Give it up? Now?”

“I’m no hero,” I said savagely, “and you’ve never seen the Trailmen fight.” I took Sharra’s matrix from her hand. Dyan stepped forward, but Kadarin elbowed him away. “Not you!”

It was fortunate we had Kadarin to deal with. When we fought, it would be to death — but it would be fair. “We can go. His word’s good.”

But Thyra flung herself forward, the knife bright in her hand. I twisted, just too late; she drove the knife into my side.

I got my arm up and knocked her hard, stunningly, across the face; then I sat down, hard, my hand to the numb slash. Blood dripped through my fingers. I heard Kadarin cry out like a berserker; dimly saw him shaking Thyra with maniac strength, back and forth, and finally he cast her to the ground, where she lay moaning. She had violated his word.

And then I blacked out.

There was a roaring sound around me. I was lying with my head in Kathie’s lap.

“Lie still. They’re taking us to Thendara in a rocket-car.”

“Keep him quiet, Kathie.”

I reached for Callina’s hand, but it was the cool brittle fingertips of Ashara that were fetters on my wrist, her cold eyes in the grayness. I jolted awake; something had touched my mind. Marja! I reached for her, but where she had been was only an empty, place in the world—

I shook my brain free of delirium for a minute. Of course I could not touch Marja. Not in pain like this. I would not want to let her share this now.

But a man’s mind is so alone, shut up inside the bones of the skull.

I sank into the gray night again.

I was walking…

There was an arm beneath my shoulders, and Kadarin’s voice said, “Easy! He can walk. It’s just a scratch, the knife turned on the ribs.”

My eyes wouldn’t focus. I heard someone say sharply “Good God! come in here, and sit down.”

The dizziness cleared. I was standing in the Terran HQ, a rolling view of the spaceport lying far below me, and straight before me, at a big glass-topped desk, Dan Lawton was standing, looking at me with surprise and concern. Kadarin’s arm was still holding me upright. I pulled away; from somewhere out of my range of vision, Regis Hastur got up, came to me, took me firmly by the shoulders and put me into a chair.

“Who in the hell are you?”

Kadarin bowed, ever so slightly.

“Robert Raymon Kadarin, z’par servu. And you?”

Behind us, a door opened and Kathie’s voice said anxiously, “Is he really — oh, hello, Dan.”

The Terran Legate shook his head. “In a minute,” he said to nobody in particular, “I shall begin to gibber. Hello, Kathie. It is you?”

She looked dubiously at me. “May I tell him?”

“Wait, wait. One thing at a time. I’ll go nuts, if I have to unravel anything more just now. Kadarin. I’ve wanted to set eyes on you for quite a while. You know you’ve finally stepped over the line?”

“I claim immunity,” Kadarin said harshly. “Lew Alton would have died at Hall I had given him safe-conduct, and his life has been formally claimed; it is mine to dispose of as I will. I brought him here of my own free will, when I could have preserved my own immunity by staying away and letting him die. I claim immunity.”

Lawton groaned. But Kadarin had the legal right of it. “All right. But no telepathic tricks.”

He smiled bitterly. “I couldn’t, if I would. Dyan Ardais ran off with the Sharra matrix. I’m as helpless as Lew, here!”

Rafe Scott came suddenly into the office. The boy’s face took on a stunned look, as he saw me, and Regis, and Kadarin, and Kathie; but he spoke to Lawton.

“Why have you locked Thyra up downstairs?”

“Do you know that woman?” Lawton demanded sharply.

“She’s my sister,” Kadarin said, while Rafe was still sputtering.

“Damn it!” Lawton exploded, “every troublemaker on the planet is related to you one way or another, Rafe! She tried to murder Lew Alton, that’s all. When we brought her in, all of a sudden we had a screeching maniac on our hands, so I had the doctor give her a shot, and dumped her in a cell to cool off.”

Rafe came to me, his voice urgent. “Lew, why would Thyra—”

“Let him alone, you!” Regis shoved Rafe roughly away. I gripped Regis’ arm. “Don’t start another fight,” I implored. “Don’t! Don’t!”

A moment he resisted, then shrugged, and sat on the arm of my chair, glaring at Rafe. “Wasn’t Callina with you?”

“The medical officer kept her too,” Kathie said. “She was dizzy — sick. She kept falling asleep.”

Trance again? I sat upright, feeling lightheaded. “I’ve got to get to her!”

“You can’t do anything now,” Regis said.

“What are you doing here?”

Lawton answered for him. “I sent, last night, for the Regent, and we’ve been talking most of the night.”

Regis said quietly, “We’re finished, Lew. The Comyn will have to make terms. Even Grandfather realizes that. And if Sharra gets out of hand—”

The Sword of Aldones was lying across Lawton’s desk, Kadarin came and stood over it. “I let Sharra loose,” he said, “It was an experiment that misfired, that’s all. But our damned idiot hero here made matters worse by taking the Sharra matrix off-world, and for six years, all those activated spots just ran wild. And now Dyan has it!” He turned restlessly, a prowling animal. “I knew Alton wouldn’t deal with me on any terms. So I tried to find someone in the Comyn, anyone who would steal the thing back for me. Just so I could monitor those sites, and then destroy the matrix. But after all that work — “his shoulders sagged. “I walked from the trap to the cookpot, when I tried to deal with Dyan Ardais!”

“Did he kill Marius to get it?” Regis asked.

“I imagine so, I’m not sure, but I’m not very wise in the accomplices I choose, am? That—” he pointed at the Sword of Aldones, “is a last resort. It will put Sharra out, permanently, but it’s murder. Anyone who’s ever been keyed into the Sharra matrix—”

Lawton said, “I’ll keep it for the time being.”

Kadarin laughed, a harsh animal sound. “Just try! Now that it’s been crossed with Sharra’s, even I—” he reached for the sword, then his hands contracted visibly, and he drew back with an audible gasp. Shaking his fingers, agonized, he glanced at Rafe and said, “You try.”

“Not if I know it!” Rafe backed away.

Lawton was no coward. He reached over and took the hilt firmly. Then, in a shower of blue sparks, he went flying across the room. He crashed into the wall, fell, and picked himself up, dazed, rubbing his head. “Good lord!”

“My turn.” I reached for the Sword, which had fallen to the floor. I managed to lift it to the desk, but finally, trembling, had to let it fall. “I can touch it,” I said, feeling the hot, unbearable tingling, “but I can’t hang on to it.”

“No one man can,” Regis said. “But I’ll keep it for the moment.” Easily, he picked it up and belted it at his waist. “I am Hastur,” he said quietly.

Then the Hastur Gift is the living matrix!

Regis nodded. The matrix had found its support and focus, the monitoring balance, in the brain and nerves of the Hastur who bore it. No one else could handle that sword — or even hold it without danger.

Sharra was only a dreadful and lethal copy of this.

“Yes;” Kadarin said quietly, “I guessed. That was why your hand never healed, Lew. The wound itself was not so bad, but you’d handled the matrix, and human flesh and blood won’t take it. I never did, without at least one other telepath in rapport—”

Suddenly, down the corridor, Thyra began to scream.

Kadarin jumped out of his chair. I sat bolt upright. That something which had set Thyra to mad shrieking had jolted in me, too; black emptiness, loss, tearing—

“Marja!” I almost sobbed the name.

Kadarin whirled to face me; I have never seen such a look on a human face, before or since. “Quick! Where is she?”

“What’s the matter?” Lawton demanded.

Kadarin moved his lips, but no sound came. Finally he said, “Dyan Ardais has the matrix—”

I finished. “He doesn’t dare use it alone. He saw me — what happened to my hand. He’ll need a telepath, and Marja’s an Alton—”

“Dirty, treacherous—” Kadarin’s voice was thick with fear, but not for himself. My mind was open, and for a minute, seeing Kadarin, my hate receded. Regis turned, unbelted the Sword of Aldones, and put it into Kathie’s hands. “Keep this,” he said, “you’re still immune. Don’t be afraid; no Darkovan alive can take it from you, or harm you while you hold it.” He turned to me, and without a word, knowing what he wanted, I gave him Rafe’s pistol.

“What are you—”

Regis said tersely, cutting Lawton short, “This is a Comyn affair, and with the best will in the world, you could only hinder, not help. Rafe, come with me.”

Kadarin said harshly, “You fool, it’s for Marja! Go with him!”

They went. The rhythmic, hysterical shrieks never stopped. Kadarin stood still, as if- holding himself in check with his whole body; then suddenly broke free. “I’m going,” he shouted at Lawton over his shoulder, and slammed out of the room. Lawton grabbed my arm.

“No, you don’t! Have sense, man! You can hardly stand on your feet!” He forced me into the chair again. “What set them off? Who or what is Marja?”

The screaming stopped, abruptly, as if a switch had been flipped, leaving a silence that was somehow frightening. Lawton swore and stamped out of the room, leaving me lying in the chair, swearing with helpless rage, unable to rise. I heard shouts and voices ringing in the corridors, and wondered what had happened now, and then Dio stormed into the room.

“And they left you here!” she raged. “What did that redheaded bitch do to you? And they’ve doped Callina — oh, Lew, Lew, your shirt’s all blood—” She knelt by me, her face white as her dress. Lawton came stamping back and stood over me, his face furious.

“Gone! That Thyra woman is gone — out of a sheet-steel cell, with guards all over the place! When that happens, with a Comyn matrix mechanic in the building—” He caught sight of Dio and his scowl deepened"I know you, you’re that sister of Lerrys. What are you doing here?”

“At the moment,” she blazed, “trying to see what’s wrong with Lew — which nobody else is bothering about!”

“I’m, all right,” I muttered, angry at the solicitude which weakened me. But I let her take me down to the Medical Floor where a little fat man in a white coat grumbled about a damned uncivilized planet where he spent his time patching up knife wounds. He did me up in plastic shields which hurt like hell, burned me with ultra-light of some kind and made me swallow something red and sticky which burnt my mouth and made my head swim, but it took the pain away; and when the dizziness stopped, I could think clearly again.

“Where’s Callina Aillard?”

“In there,” Dr. Forth said. “Asleep. She was faint and sick, so I gave her a shot of hypnal and had a nurse put her to bed in the women’s infirmary.”

“Any chance she could be in shock-trance?”

He put the things he’d used under the light-machine. T wouldn’t know. She saw you stabbed, didn’t she? Some Women react that way.”

I damned the man for a fool. Darkovan women don’t faint at a little blood. What was he doing here, if he couldn’t diagnose matrix-shock? And if he had drugged Callina, there wasn’t a chance I could bring her out of it. Not until all the drug wore off.

“It might be best,” Dio said quietly. “Before she wakes, I want to tell you all about Callina. Not now.”

Lawton, in his office, was setting the mechanism of search into action. Time crawled by; I waited. Once his puzzlement exploded into frustrated questions. “Damn it, I still haven’t figured out how the Marshall girl got here from Samarra. And I’m still trying to get it all straight — the way you, and Rafe, and this Thyra woman, and Kadarin, are all brothers and sisters or cousins of whatever. And now this Thyra person vanishes into thin air! Did you witch her out of there someway?”

“I did not.” Thyra could lie in a cell forever, for all I cared.

As the narcotic slowly wore off, I felt pain in my side again, but deeper down was that horrible sense of something torn away — I was afraid to know what it was.

The bloody sun of Darkover had reached its height and begun to angle sharply downward when I heard dragging footsteps and Regis and Rafe and Kadarin came in.

Regis had changed shockingly in a few hours. There was blood on his face, and blood on his sleeve, but it went deeper than his first serious fight. The last trace of the boy had burnt away and it was a man, and a Hastur, who looked at me in despair.

“You’re hurt!” Lawton exclaimed, with the horror of a Terran for personally inflicted wounds.

“Not much. Cut my shirt up, mostly. I fought with Dyan.”

“Dead?” I asked.

“No, damn it!”

Lawton demanded “Kadarin! Where’s that woman of yours?

Kadarin’s gaunt face contracted in fear. “Thyra? Isn’t she here with you? Zandru’s hells, how can I tell her—” He covered his face with his hands. Suddenly he came to me. All the rest of the people in the office might as well have been on another planet for all the regard he gave them, and he looked into my eyes with an intensity that burned years away; back to the days when we had been friends, not sworn foes.

My voice came through dry lips.

“Bob, what is it? What’s happened?”

His face twisted. “Dyan! Zandru send him scorpion whips! Naotalba twist his feet off in hell forever! He’s taken her into Sharra — my little Marguerhia.” His voice broke. The words burned at me like acid. Dyan, with the Sharra matrix. Marja, a child but an Alton — a telepath. And the blankness where she had been, the sense of something torn away.

Then she was dead.

Marjorie. Marius. Linnell.

Now Marja.

Lawton did not press us for details. He must have known we were all touching our last reserves of strength. I found myself sitting and asking questions as if anything could matter now. “Andres?”

“Dyan left him for dead, but he may pull through.”

It was savage comfort to know that Andres had defended her. like that. “Ashara?”

Dio stood up, her mouth, pinched tight. I think we had all forgotten she was there. “Regis! Keep them! I am going to the Tower!”

I cried, “What for?” but she was already gone.

Lawton said grimly, “The first thing is to have Dyan picked up. If he has the little girl—”

Kadarin broke in. “You can’t! There’s no way to take the Sharra matrix away from him now. I’ve had the thing in my own hands often enough to know! Dyan could get it away from Marius only because he didn’t know how to guard him-self. No man living—” Kadarin started upright. “Lawton! all of you! Bear witness! His life is mine, when, how and as I can kill him, fair fight or unfair, his life is—”

“Mine!” I cut through his words. “Marja was mine! And whoever kills him, owes me a life—”

“You pair of maniacs!” Lawton said, “let’s catch him first, before you start fighting for the privilege of killing him!”

With a gesture that was animal in its ferocity, Kadarin said, “If he frees Sharra, don’t trust me! I’m the masterseal, and I’ll be right in it!”

Regis turned to me. “Well, Lew, it will have to be you. You’ve touched Sharra, but you’re sealed to the Comyn too. If we could hold you in rapport from here, you could go into the Sharra matrix—”

I cracked, then. “No!” I shouted. “No!” They could all die before they’d force me into that; why should I care now if Sharra ravaged Darkover? What had I left to lose? I grabbed the pistol out of Rafe’s belt, and snapped off the safety. “I’ll blow out my own brains first!”

Regis’ hand caught mine in a bone-crushing grip. We struggled briefly, crazily, but he had two hands; the recoil of the gun knocked me back and the bullet fired harmlessly through the window, in a burst of shattering glass. Regis shook my cramped fingers from the butt.

“You’re insane!” he said. He tossed the pistol to Rafe. “Here. This was yours originally, wasn’t it? Take it. It’s been around a lot lately. One lunatic is enough!”

Lawton swore, kicking at the glass on the floor. “I ought to throw you all in the clink. Rafe, go get somebody to clean this mess up, and take Alton downstairs. He’s off his head again.”

I dragged to my feet, but I had to hold the chair. “I’m a prisoner?”

“Hell, no! But you walk out of here now, you’ll pass out on the sidewalk! Man, use your head! Go on down to the infirmary! We’ll let you know when we need you!”

Quite suddenly the rage dissolved, leaving me empty and numb. Kadarin unfolded his long legs and came to me. “Truce, Lew,” he said quietly. “Marja was mine, too. We can’t do much now. You’re worn out. Maybe later we can figure out some way to get me out of that hellish thing before Dyan burns us all to hell-and-gone.” His eyes met mine; there was no hate left in them. Mine, too, had burnt away. I stumbled and let myself lean wearily on his arm. “Truce,” I said.

So it was Kadarin who took me down to Medical and into the hospital wing. I sat down on the cot in the cubicle, my emotions burned out but my nerves jumping and my telepathic barriers nonexistent. I bent wearily to pull off my boots.

“Need any help?”

I asked him, straight, “You think Dyan will let Sharra loose?”

“I’m damn sure he’ll try.”

It felt unreal. For six years my main compulsion had been to kill Kadarin, I had pictured it to myself a thousand times, and here we were, talking, quietly and rationally and from the same side. It felt unpleasant, but somehow sensible. I supposed it was the Terran way of doing things.

“Want me to get you something from the Medic?”

“No.” I added, grudgingly, “No, thanks.”

Then I looked up, squarely at him. I knew he would never stoop to lie about it. “Bob, was it by your order that Marjorie was — forced into the Sharra fire, that last time? Was it your way of revenging yourself on me? When you knew—” I swallowed, “that it would kill her?”

“Why would I kill her — to revenge myself on you?” He flung the question at me with a passionate sincerity I could not doubt; the same agonized question, that had been tormenting me for six years.

“Lew, I knew Sharra as no living man has ever known. There was no danger, not for either of the girls, while I was in control. You know I loved Thyra, yet I managed to keep her safe.” His face was bitter, agonized. “There aren’t ten men alive who can determine the limits of safety for a woman they’ve had, but I did it for Thyra! Marjorie—”

His dark face was ravaged by such misery that I almost pitied him; his barriers were down too, and the violence of his grief was like a burning in me. He would never be free of that grief, that guilt. “Marjorie — Margie was just a child, I thought. She never told me! I swear I never knew you had been her lover 1 I swear it!”

I rolled over and buried my face, unable to endure it, but Kadarin went on his voice heavy with pain. “So she went into it — and you know what happened. Any woman would have died coming from the arms of a lover to the pole of such power, and I’ve hated you for that—”

His voice suddenly softened into deep compassion. “But it never occurred to me that you couldn’t know. Hell, you were just a kid yourself. A pair of babies, you and Marjorie, and I never even warned you. Zandru’s hells, Lew, talk about revenge, you had yours — !”

Abruptly he was calm; dead calm. He said without inflection, “I claimed your life once. I give it back to you.”

I looked up at him, equally numbed. He had claimed my life; a solemn obligation, irrevocable in Darkovan law, while we both lived. Had another killed me, he would have been legally obligated to track down and kill my murderer. But Darkovan law was collapsing around us. We stood in the smashing rubble. I did not know my own voice when I said, “I’ll take it from you.”

Gravely, unsmiling, we shook hands.

“Tell me this,” I said wearily. “Why was Thyra’s child mine?”

There was irony in his gaunt face. “I thought you’d have that all figured out. I hoped for a telepath son, with the

Alton Gift.”

Damned, insolent-He said evenly, “Thyra never forgave me. I was so pleased with Marja that she was jealous, she refused to have the child where I could see her—” Suddenly his face twisted again. “It will kill Thyra! I swore Marja should not be used as a pawn, and I couldn’t even keep her safe. Thyra has pretended so long to hate the child. Gods! Great Gods! Everything I love, everyone I love, I hurt or kill!” I flinched with the anguish of his despair. Abruptly he turned and went out, slamming the door so violently that the walls trembled.