Heritage and Exile (82 page)

Danvan Hastur frowned. “That was a long time ago.”

“Funny, how a generation or two wipes out the scandal,” said Gabriel with a grin. “I thought that had all been hashed over, back when they tested Lew for the Alton Gift. He had it, I didn't, and that was that.”

Danvan Hastur said quietly “I want you at the head of the Alton Domain, Gabriel. It is your duty to the Hastur clan.”

Gabriel picked up his spoon, frowned, rubbed it briefly on the napkin and thrust it back into his soup. He took a mouthful or two before he said, “I did my duty to the Hastur clan when I gave them two—no, three—sons, sir, and one of them to be Regis's Heir. But I swore loyalty to Kennard, too. Do you honestly think I'm going to fight my cousin for his rightful place as Alton Heir?”

But that,
Regis thought, watching the old man's face,
is exactly what Danvan Hastur does think. Or did.

“The Altons are allied to Terra,” he said. “They've made no secret of it. Kennard, now Lew, and even Marius, have Terran education. The only way we can keep the Alton Domain on the Darkovan side is to have a strong Hastur man in command, Gabriel. Challenge him again before the Council; I don't even think he wants to fight for it.”

“Lord of Light, sir! Do you honestly think—” Gabriel broke off. He said, “I can't do it, Lord Hastur, and I won't.”

“Do you want a half-Terran pawn of Sharra at the head of the Alton Domain?” Javanne demanded, staring at her husband.

“That's for him to say,” said Gabriel steadily. “I took oath to obey any lawful command you gave me, Lord Hastur, but it isn't a lawful command when you bid me challenge the rightful Head of my Domain. If you'll pardon my saying so, sir, that's a long way from being a lawful command.”

Old Hastur said impatiently “The important thing at this time is that the Domains should stand fast. Lew's unfit—”

“If he's unfit, sir—” and Gabriel looked troubled—“it'll be apparent soon enough.”

Javanne said shrilly, “I thought they had deposed him as Kennard's successor after the Sharra rebellion. And now both he and his brother are still tied up with Sharra—”

Regis said, “And so am I, sister; or weren't you listening?”

She raised her eyes to him and said, disbelieving, “You?”

Regis reached, with hesitant fingers, for his matrix; fumbled at taking it from its silk wrapping. He remembered that Javanne had, years ago, taught him to use it, and she remembered too, for she raised her angry eyes and suddenly softened, and smiled at him. There was the old image in her mind,
as if the girl she had been—herself motherless, trying to mother her motherless baby brother—had bent over him as she had so often done when he was small, swung him up into her arms—
For a moment the hard-faced woman, the mother of grown sons, was gone, and she was the gentle and loving sister he had once known.

Regis said softly, “I am sorry,
breda,
but things don't go away because you are afraid of them. I didn't want you to have to see this.” He sighed and let the blue crystal fall into his cupped hand.

When he had seen it six years ago at the height of the Sharra rebellion, his
laran
had been newly waked; he had been, moreover, half dead with threshold sickness, and Sharra had been only another of the horrors of that time. When he had seen it briefly in Marius's house, he had been too shocked to notice. Now something cold took him by the throat; his flesh crawled on his bones, every hair on his body rose slowly upright, beginning with his forearms, slowly moving over all his body. Regis knew, without knowing how he knew, that he looked upon a very ancient enemy of his race and his caste, and something in his body, cell-deep, bone-deep, knew and recognized it. Nausea crawled through his body and he felt the sour taste of terror in his mouth.

Confused, he thought,
but Sharra was used and chained by the forge-folk, surely I am simply remembering the destruction of Sharra loosed, a city rising in flame . . . it is no worse than a forest fire
—but he knew this was something worse, something he could not understand, something that fought to draw him into itself. . . .
recognition, fear, a fascination almost sexual in its import . . .

“Aaahh—” It was a half-drawn breath of horror; he heard, saw,
felt
Javanne's mind, her terror reaching out, entangled. She clutched at the matrix under her own dress as if it had burned her, and Regis, with a mighty effort, wrenched his mind and his eyes from the Form of Fire blazing from his matrix. But Javanne clung, in terror and fascination. . . .

And something in Regis, long dormant, unguessed, seemed to uncoil within him; as a skilled swordsman takes the hilt in his hand, without knowing what moves he will make, or which strokes he will answer, knowing only that he can match his opponent, he felt that strangeness rise, take over what he did next. He
reached out
into the depths of the fire, and delicately picked Javanne's mind loose, focusing so tightly that he did not even touch the Form of Fire . . . as if she were a puppet, and the strings had been cut, she slumped back fainting in her chair, and Gabriel caught her scowling.

“What did you do?” he demanded, “What have you done to her?”

Javanne, half-conscious, was blinking. Regis, with careful deliberation, wrapped up his matrix. He said, “It is dangerous to you too, Javanne. Don't come near it again.”

Danvan Hastur had been staring, bewildered, as his grandson and granddaughter stared in terror, paralyzed, then, as they withdrew. Regis remembered, wearily, that his grandfather had little
laran
. Regis himself did not understand what he had done, only knew he was shaking down deep in the bones, exhausted, as weary as if he had been on the fire-lines for three days and three nights. Without knowing he was doing it, he reached for a plateful of hot rolls, smeared honey thickly on one and gobbled it down, feeling the sugar restoring him.

“It was Sharra,” Javanne said in a whisper. “But what did you do?”

And Regis could only mumble, shocked, “I haven't the faintest idea.”

I've never been sure how I got out of the Crystal Chamber. I have the impression that Jeff half-carried me, when the Council broke up in discord, but the next thing I remember clearly, I was in the open air, and Marius was with me, and Jeff. I pulled myself upright.

“Where are we going?”

“Home,” said Marius, “The Alton town-house; I didn't think you'd care for the Alton apartments, and I've never been there—not since Father left. I've been living here with Andres and a housekeeper or two.”

I couldn't remember that I'd been to the town house since I was a very young child. It was growing dark; thin cold rain stung my face, clearing my mind, but fragments of isolated thought jangled and clamored from the passersby, and the old insistent beat:

. . . last command. . . . return, fight for your brother's rights . . .
Would I never be free of that? Impatiently I struggled to get control as we came across the open square; but I seemed to see it, not as it was, dark and quiet, with a single light somewhere at the back, a servant's night-light; but I saw it through someone else's eyes, alive with light and warmth spilling down from open doors and brilliant windows, companionship and love and past happiness . . . I realized from Jeff's arm around my shoulders that he was seeing it as it had been, and moved away. I remembered that he had been married, and that his wife had died long since. He, too, had lost a loved one. . . .

But Marius was up the steps, calling out in excitement as if he were younger than I remembered him.

“Andres! Andres!” and a moment later the old
coridom
from Armida, friend, tutor, foster-father, was staring at me in astonishment and welcome.

“Young Lew! I—” he stopped, in shock and sorrow, as he saw my scarred face, the missing hand. He swallowed, then said gruffly, “I'm glad you're here.” He came and took my cloak, managing to give my shoulder an awkward pat of affection and grief. I suppose Marius had sent word about father; mercifully, he asked no questions, just said “I've told the housekeeper to get a room ready for you. You too, sir?” he asked Jeff, who shook his head.

“Thank you, but I am expected elsewhere—I am here as Lord Ardais's guest, and I don't think Lew is in any shape for any long family conferences tonight.” He turned to me and said, “Do you mind?” and held his hand lightly over my forehead in the monitor's touch, the fingers at least three inches away, running his hand down over my head, all along my body. The touch was so familiar, so reminiscent of the years at Arilinn—the only place I could remember where I had been wholly happy, wholly at peace—that I felt my eyes fill with tears.

Jeff's hand was solid under my arm; he shoved me down in a seat. Through the remnant of the drugs which had destroyed my control, I felt his solicitude, Andres's shock at my condition, and turned to face them, clenching my hand, aware of phantom pain as by reflex I tried to clench the missing hand too; wanting to scream out at them in rage, and realizing that they were all troubled for me, worrying about me, sharing my pain and distress.

“Keep still, let me finish monitoring you.” When he finished Jeff said, “Nothing wrong, physically, except fatigue and drug hangover from that damned stuff the Terrans gave him. I don't suppose you have any of the standard antidotes, Andres?” At the old man's headshake he said dryly, “No, I don't suppose they're the sort of thing that one can buy in an apothecary shop or an herb-seller's stall. But you need sleep, Lew. I don't suppose there's any
raivannin
in the house—”

Raivannin
is one of the drugs developed for work among Tower circles, linked in the mind of a telepathic circle. . . . There are others:
Kirian,
which lowers the resistance to telepathic contact, is perhaps the most common.
Raivannin
has an action almost the opposite of that of
kirian
. It tends to shut down the telepathic functions. They'd given it to me, in Arilinn, to quiet, a little, the torture and horror which I was broadcasting after Marjorie's death . . . quiet it enough so that the rest of the Tower circle need not share every moment of agony. Usually it was given to someone at the point of death or dissolution, or to the insane, so that they would not draw everyone else into their inner torment. . . .

“No,” Jeff said compassionately. “That's not what I mean. I think it would help you get a night's sleep, that's all. I wonder—There are licensed matrix mechanics in the City, and they know who I am; First in Arilinn. I will have no trouble buying it.”

“Tell me where to go,” said a young man, coming swiftly into the room, “and I will get it; I am known to many of them. They know I have
laran
. Lew—” he came around and stood directly before me. “Do you remember me?”

I focused my eyes with difficulty, saw golden-amber eyes, strange eyes . . . Marjorie's eyes! Rafe Scott flinched at the agony of that memory, but he came up and embraced me. He said, “I'll find some
raivannin
for you. I think you need it.”

“What are you doing in the city, Rafe?” He had been a child when I had drawn him, with Marjorie, into the circle of Sharra. Like myself, he bore the ineradicable taint, fire and damnation. . . .
no!
I slammed my mind shut, with an effort that turned me white as death.

“Don't you remember? My father was a Terran, Captain Zeb Scott. One of Aldaran's tame Terrans.” He said it wryly, with a cynical lift of his lip, too cynical for anyone so young. He was Marius's own age. I was beyond curiosity now; though I had heard Regis describing what he had seen, and knew that he was Marius's friend. He didn't stay, but went out into the rainy night, shrugging a Darkovan cloak over his head.

Jeff sat on one side of me; Marius on the other. We didn't talk much; I was in no shape for it. It took all my energy for me to keep from curling up under the impact of all this.

“You never did tell me, Jeff, how you came to be in the city.”

“Dyan came to bring me,” he said. “I don't want the Domain and I told him so; but he said that having an extra claimant would confuse the issue, and stall them until Kennard could return. I don't think he was expecting you.”

“I'm sure he wasn't,” Marius said.

“That's all right, brother, I can live without Dyan's affection,” I said. “He's never liked me . . . ” but still I was confused by that moment of rapport, when for a moment I had seen him through my father's eyes . . .

. . . dear, cherished, beloved, sworn brother . . . even, once or twice, in the manner of lads, lovers . . .
I slammed the thought away. In a sense the rejection was a kind of envy. Solitary in the Comyn, I had had few
bredin,
fewer to offer such affection even in crisis. Could it be that I envied my father that? His voice, his presence, were a clamor in my mind. . . .

I should tell Jeff what had happened. Since Kennard had awakened the latent Alton gift, the gift of forced rapport, by violence when I was hardly out of childhood, he had been there, his thoughts overpowering my own, choking me, leaving me all too little in the way of free will, till I had broken free, and in the disaster of the Sharra rebellion, I had learned to fear that freedom. And then, dying, his incredible strength closing over my mind in a blast I could not resist or barricade . . .