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us to petty wars, feuds, murders and assassins. We need new laws, not stupid reverence for old ones. I

have broken the Darkovan code and as a result, the Hasturs and the Comyn hold my family in horror; but

we are at peace here and we have no hooligans at our doors, waiting for an old man to weaken so that

he can be challenged and set down as if the stronger swordsman were the better man. The law of brute

force means only the rule of the brute.”

“And other worlds, I believe,” Melitta said, “have found that unrestricted changes in weapons leads to an endless race for better and better weapons in a chase to disaster which can destroy not only men, but worlds.”

“That may even be true,” Aldaran said, “and yet look what has happened to Darkover, in the hands of the Terrans? What have we done? We refused their technology, their weapons, we insisted on refusing real contact with them. Since the Years of Chaos, when we lost all of our own technologies except for the few in the hands of the Comyn, we’ve slipped back further and further into barbarism. In the lowlands, the Seven Domains keep their old rule as if no ships had ever put forth into space. And here in the mountains we allow ourselves to be harassed by bandits because we are afraid to fight them. Someone must step beyond this deadlock, and I have tried to do so. I have made a compact with the Terrans; they will teach us their ways and defenses and I will teach them ours. And as a result of a generation of peace and freedom from casual bandits and learning to think as the Terrans think—that everything which happens can and must be explained and measured—I have even rediscovered many of our old Darkovan ways; you need not think we are totally committed to becoming part of Terra. For instance, I have learned how to train telepaths for matrix work without the old superstitious rituals; none of the Comyn will even try that. And as a result—but enough of that. I can see that you are not in any state to think about abstract ideas of progress, science and culture as yet.”

“But what all this fine-sounding talks means,” said Storn bitterly, “is that my sister and brother, and all

my people, must lie at the mercy of bandits because you prefer not to be entangled in feuds.”

“My dear boy!” Aldaran looked aghast. “The gods help me; if I had the means to do so, I would forget my ethics and come to your aid—blood kin is not mountain-berry wine! But I have no fighting men at all, and few weapons, and such as I have could not be moved over the mountains.” Storn was enough of a telepath to know that his distress was very real. Aldaran said, “We live in bad times, Storn; no culture ever changed without people getting hurt, and it is your ill-fortune that you are one of those who are getting hurt in the change. But take heart; you are alive and unhurt, and your sister is here, and believe me, you shall be made welcome here as kin; this is your home, from this very day forth. The gods seize me, if I am not as a father to you both from this moment.”

“And my sister? My brother? My people?”

“Perhaps some day we will find a way to help them; some day all these mountain bandits must be wiped

out, but we have neither the means nor any way.”

He dismissed them, tenderly. “Think it over. Let me do what I can for you; you certainly must not returnto throw your lives after theirs. Do you think that your people really want you to share their fate now that

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you have escaped?”

Storn’s thoughts ran bitter counterpoint as they left Aldaran. Perhaps what Aldaran said made sense inthe long run, in the history of Darkover, in the annals of a world. But he was interested in the short run, inhis own people and the annals of his own time. Taking the long view inevitably meant being callous tohow many people were hurt. If he had had no hope of outside help, he would gladly have sent Melitta tosafety, if nothing more could be salvaged, and been glad there was a home for her here. But now thathope had been raised for more, this seemed like utter failure.

He heard, as from a distance, Desideria saying to Melitta, “Something draws me to your brother—Idon’t know; he is not a man whose looks I admire, it is something beyond that—I wish I could help you. I can do much, and in the old days, the powers of the trained telepaths of Darkover could be usedagainst intruders and invaders. But not alone.”

Melitta said, “Don’t think we are ungrateful for your guardian’s good will, Desideria. But we must returnto Storn even if all we can do is to share the fate of those there. But we will not do that unless all hope isgone, even if we must rouse the peasants with their pitchforks and the forge folk of the hills!”

Desideria stopped dead in the hallway. She said, “The forge folk of the caverns in the Hellers? Do youmean the old folk who worshipped the goddess, Sharra?”

“Indeed they did. But those altars are long cold and profaned.”

“Then I can help you!” Desideria’s eyes glowed. “Do you think an altar matters? Listen, Melitta, you know, a little, what my training has been? Well, one of the—the powers we have learned to raise here is that associated with Sharra. In the old days, Sharra was a power in this world; the Comyn sealed the gates against raising that power, because of various dangers, but we have found the way, a little—but Melitta, if you can find me even fifty men who once believed in Sharra, I could—I could level the gates of Storn Castle, I could burn Brynat’s men alive about him.”

“I don’t understand,” said Storn, caught in spite of himself. “Why do you need worshippers?”

“And you a telepath yourself, I dare say, Storn! Look—the linked minds of the worshippers, in a shared belief, create a tangible force, a strength, to give power to that—that force, the power which comes through the gates of the other dimension into this world. It is the Form of Fire. I can call it up alone, but it has no power without someone to give it strength. I have the matrixes to open that gate. But with those who had once worshipped—”

Storn thought he knew what she meant. He had discovered forces which could be raised, which hecould not handle alone, and with Brynat at his gates. He had thought,
 
If I had help, someone trained inthese ways
 
—

He said, “Will Aldaran allow this?”

Desideria looked adult and self-sufficient. She said, “When anyone has my training and my strength, shedoes not ask for leave to do what she feels right. I have said I will help you; my guardian would notgainsay me—and I would not give him the right to do so.”

“And I thought you a child,” Storn said.

“No one can endure the training I have had and remain a child,” Desideria said. She looked into his eyes

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and colored, but she did not flinch from his gaze. “Some day I will read the strangeness in you, Loran of Storn. That will be for another time; now your mind is elsewhere.” Briefly she touched his hand, then colored again and turned away. “Don’t think me bold.”

Touched, Storn had no answer. Fear and uncertainty caught him again. If these people felt no horror ofbreaking the Darkovan League’s most solemn law, the Compact against weapons, would they have anycompunctions about what he had done? He did not know whether he felt relieved or vaguely shocked atthe thought that they might accept it as part of a necessity, without worrying about the dubious ethicsinvolved.

He forced such thoughts from his mind. For the moment it was enough that Desideria thought there wasa way to help. It was a desperate chance, but he was desperate enough for any gamble, whatever thatmight be—even Sharra.

“Come with me to the room where my sisters and I work,” she said. “We must find the proper instruments and—you may as well call them talismans, if you like. And if you, Storn, have experimented with these things, then the sight of a matrix laboratory may interest you. Come. And then we can leave within the hour, if you wish.”

She led the way along a flight of stairs and past glowing blue beacons in the hallways which Storn,although he had never seen them before, recognized. They were the force beacons, the warning signs. Hehad some of them in his own castle and had experimented until he had learned many of their secrets.

They had given him the impregnable field which protected his body and had turned Brynat’s weapon, andthe magnetic currents which guided the mechanical birds that allowed him to experience the sensation offlight. There were other things with less practical application, and he wanted to ask Desideria questionafter question. But he was haunted by apprehension, a sense of time running out; Melitta must havesensed it too, for she dropped back a step with unease.

He tried to smile. “Nothing. It’s a little overwhelming to learn that these—these toys with which I spentmy childhood can be a science of this magnitude.”

Time is running out…

Desideria swung back a curtain, and stepped through a blue magnetic shimmer. Melitta followed. Storn,seized by indefinable reluctance, hesitated, then stepped forward.

A stinging shock ran through him, and—for an instant Dan Barron, bewildered, half-maddened, andfighting for sanity, stared around him at the weird trappings of the matrix laboratory, as if waking from along, long nightmare.

“Storn—?” Desideria’s hand touched his. He forced himself to awareness and smiled. “Sorry. I’m not

used to fields quite as strong.”

“I should have warned you. But if you could not come through the field you would not have enough

knowledge to help us, in any case. Here, let me find what I need.”

She flicked a small button and motioned them to seats.

“Wait for me.”

Slowly, Storn became aware of the strange disorganizing humming. Melitta was staring at him in

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astonishment and dismay but it took all his strength not to dissolve beneath the strange invisible sound,

not to vanish…

A telepathic damper. Barron had been aware of one, at Armida, with his developing powers, he had justbeen disturbed at it, but now… now…

Now there was not even time to cry out, it was vibrating through his brain—through temporal lobes andnerves, creating disruption of the nets that held him in domination, freeing—Barron! He felt himselfspinning through indefinable, blue-tinged, timeless space—falling, disappearing, dying—blind, deafened,entranced… He spun down into unconsciousness, his last thought was not of Melitta left alone, nor of hisvictim Barron. It was Desideria’s gray eyes and the indefinable touch of her compassion and knowledge,that went down with him into the night of an unconsciousness so complete that it was like death…

Barron came to consciousness as if surfacing from a long, deep dive.

“
 
What the bloody hell is going on here
?” For a moment he had no idea whether or not he had spoken the words aloud. His head hurt and he recognized the invisible humming vibration that Valdir Alton had called a telepathic damper—that was all his world for a moment.

Slowly he found his feet and his balance. It was as if for days he had walked through a nightmare,conscious, but unable to do anything but what he did—as if some other person walked in his body anddirected his actions while he watched in astonishment from somewhere, powerless to intervene. Hesuddenly woke with the controlling power gone, yet the nightmare went on. The girl he had seen in thedream was there, staring up at him in mild concern—his sister?
Damn it, no, that was the other guy
 
. He could remember everything he had done and said, almost everything he had
 
thought
 
, while Storncommanded him. He had not shifted position but somehow the focus had changed. He was himself again, Dan Barron, not Storn.

He opened his mouth to raise hell, to demand explanations and give a few, to make everything veryclear, when he saw Melitta looking up at him in concern and faint fright. Melitta! He hadn’t asked to getinvolved with her, but here she was and from what he could realize, he was her only protector.
 
She’sbeen so brave; she’s come so far for help, and here it is within her reach; and what will happen if I make myself known
 
?

He was no expert on Darkovan law and custom, but the one thing he did know from walking with Stornfor seven or eight days was that, by Darkovan standards, what Storn had done was a crime.
 
Fine
 
—
 
Icould murder him for it, and God willing, some day I will. That’s one hell of a thing to do to aman’s mind and body
! But none of it was Melitta’s fault.
 
No. I’ll have to play the game for a while
 
.

The silence had fasted too long. Melitta said, with growing fear in her voice, “Storn?”

He made himself smile at her and then found it didn’t take an effort. He said, trying to remember how Storn had spoken, “It’s all right, that—telepathic damper upset me a little.”
And boy, was that amasterpiece of understatement
 
!

Desideria came back to them before Melitta could answer, carrying various things wrapped in a lengthof silk. She said, “I must go and make arrangements for transportation and escort to take you into thehills near High Windward, to the caves where the forge folk have gone. You cannot help in this, why notgo and rest? You have a long journey behind and ahead, and difficult things—” She glanced up at Barron