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"Go and rest, Lew. Look, Rafe's asleep on the rug. Thyra, call someone to carry him to bed. Off with

you now, all of you!"

"Yes," said Beltran, "tomorrow we have work to do, we've delayed long enough. Now that we have a

catalyst tele-path-"

I said somberly, "It may take a long time now to persuade Km to trust you, Beltran. And you cannot useforce on him. You know that, don't you?"

Beltran looked angry. "I won't hurt a hair of his precious little head, kinsman. But you'd better bedamned good at persuading. Without his help, I don't know what we'll do."

I didn't either. We needed Danilo so terribly. We separated quietly, all of us sobered. I had a terriblefeeling of weight on my heart. Thyra walked beside the burly servant who was carrying Rafe to bed. Kadarin and Beltran, I knew, were going to watch beside Kermiac. I should have shared that vigil. Iloved the old man and I was responsible for the moment's lack of control which had struck him down.

I was about to leave Marjorie at the foot of her tower stairway, but she clung hard to my hand.

"Please, Lew. Stay with me. As you did the other day."

I started to agree, then realized something else.

I didn't trust myself.

Whether it was the brief disturbing physical contact with Thyra, whether it was the upsetting force of thequarrel, or the old songs and ballads ... I didn't trust myself!

Even now, it took all my painfully acquired discipline, all of it, to keep from taking her into my arms,kissing her senseless, carrying her up those stairs and into her room, to the bed we had shared sochastely . . .

I stopped myself right there. But we were deeply in contact; she had seen, felt, shared that awarenesswith me. She was blushing, but she did not turn her eyes from mine. She said at last, quietly, "You toldme that when we were work-

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ing like this, nothing could happen that would harm or ... or endanger me."

I shook my head in bewilderment. "I don't understand it either, Marjorie. Normally, at this stage," andhere I laughed, a short unmirthful sound, "you and I could lie down naked together and sleep likebrothers or unweaned babies. I don't know what's happened, Marjorie, but I don't dare. Gods above!" Ialmost shouted at her. "Don't you think I want to?"

Now she did avert her eyes for a moment. She said in a whisper, "Kadarin says it's only a superstition.

I'll... I'll risk it if you want to, Lew. If you need to."

Now I really felt ashamed. I was better disciplined than this. I made myself take a long breath, unclenchmy hands from the railings of the stair. "No, beloved. Perhaps I can find out what's gone wrong. But Ihave to be alone."

I heard her plea, not aloud but straight to my mind, straight to my heart: Don't leave me! Don't go, Lew,don't ... I broke the contact harshly, cutting her off, shutting her out. It hurt horribly, but I knew that it thiswent on I would never be able to leave her, and I knew where it would end. And her discipline held. Sheclosed her eyes, drawing a deep breath. I saw that curious look of distance, withdrawnness, isolation,slip down over her features. The look Callina had had, that Festival Night. The look I had seen so oftenon Janna's face, my last season at Arilinn, She had known I loved her, wanted her. It hurt, but I feltrelieved, too. Marjorie said quietly, "I understand, Lew. Go and sleep, my darling." She turned and wentaway from me, up the long stairs, and I went away, blind with pain.

I passed the closed door of the suite where Regis and Danilo had been lodged. I knew I should speak to Regis. He was ill, exhausted. But my own misery made me shrink from the task. He had made it clear hedid not want my solicitude. He was reunited with his friend, why should I disturb them now? He wouldbe asleep, I hoped, resting after that terrible journey alone through the Hellers.

I went to my own room and threw myself down without bothering to undress.

Something was wrong. Something was terribly wrong.

I had felt a disruption like this once before, like a vortex of fury, lust, rage, destruction, surging upthrough us all. It should not be like this. It could not be like this!

Normally, matrix work left the workers drained, spent,

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without anything left over for any violent emotion. Above all, I had grown accustomed to the fact that

there was nothing left over for sexuality. It wasn't that way now.

I had been angry with Thyra at first, not aroused by her. I had been angry when it seemed she mocked Marjorie, and then suddenly I'd been so overcome by my own need that it would have been easy for meto tear off her clothes and take her there before the fire!

And Marjorie. A Keeper. I shouldn't have been capable even of thinking about her this way. Yet I hadthought about it. Damn it, I still ached with wanting her. And she had wanted me to stay with her! Was

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she weeping now, alone in her room, the tears she had been too proud to shed before me? Should I have

risked it? Sanity, prudence, long habit, told me no; no, I had done the only thing it was safe to do.

I glanced briefly at the wrapped bundle of the matrix and felt the faintest thrill of awareness along mynerves. Insulated like that, it should have been wholly dormant. Damn it, I trained at Arilinn and anyfirst-year telepath leams to insulate a matrix! What I insulate stays insulated! I must be dreaming,imagining. I was living on my nerves and by now they were raw, hypersensitive.

That damned thing was responsible for all our troubles. I'd have liked to heave it out the window, orbetter, send it out on a Terran rocket and let it work its mischief on cosmic dust or something! I heartilywished that Beltran and the Sharra matrix and Kadarin and old Desideria, with all her forge-folk abouther, were all frying together on one of their own forges.

I was still in accord with Beltran's dream, but standing between us and the accomplishment of the dreamwas this ravening nightmare of Sharra. I knew, I knew with the deepest roots of my self, that I could notcontrol it, that Marjorie could not control it, that nothing human could ever control it. We had only stirredthe surface of the matrix. If it was roused all the way it might never be controlled again, and tomorrow Iwould tell Beltran so.

Clutching this resolve, I fell into an uneasy sleep. For a long time I wandered in confused nightmaresthrough the corridors of Comyn Castle; whenever I met someone, his or her face was veiled or turnedaway in aver* sion or contempt. Javanne Hastur refusing to dance with me at a children's ball. Old Domenic di Asturien with his lifted eyebrows. My father, reaching out to me across a great

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chasm. Callina Aillard, turning away and leaving me alone on the rain-swept balcony. It seemed I wandered through those halls for hours, with no single human face turned to me in concern or compassion.

And then the dream changed. I was standing on the balcony of the Arilinn Tower, watching the sunrise,and Janna Lindir was standing beside me. I was dreamily surprised to see her. I was back again where Ihad been happy, where I had been accepted and loved, where there was no cloud on my mind andheart. But I had thought my circle had been broken and scattered, the others to then- homes, I to the Guards where I was despised, Janna married ... no, surely that had been only a bad dream! She turnedand laid her hand in mine, and I felt a deep happiness.

Then I realized it was not Janna but Callina Aillard, saying softly, mockingly, "You do know what's reallywrong with you," taunting me from the safe barrier of what she was, a Keeper, forbidden, untouchable. .

. . Maddened by the surge of need and hunger in me, I reached for ber, I tore the veils from her bodywhile she screamed and struggled. I threw her down whimpering on the stones and flung myself atop her,naked, and through her wild cries of terror she changed, she began to flame and glow and burn, the firesof Sharra engulfing us, consuming us in a wild spasm of lust and ecstasy and terror and agony....

I woke up shuddering, crying out with the mingled terror and enchantment of the dream. The Sharramatrix lay shrouded and dormant.

But I dared not close my eyes again that night

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Chapter NINETEEN

After Lew had gone away, closing the door behind him, it was Regis who moved first, stumbling acrossthe floor as if wading through a snowdrift, to clasp Dani's shoulders in a kinsman's embrace. He heard hisown voice, hoarse hi his ears.

"You're safe. You really are here and safe." He had doubted Lew's word, though never in all his life had

he reason to doubt. What kind of evil was here?

"Yes, yes, well and safe," fianilo said, then drew a harsh breath of dismay. "My lord Regis, you're

soaked through!"

For the first time Regis became aware of the heat from the fireplace, the hangings sealing off drafts, thewarmth after the icy blasts of the corridors. The very warmth touched off a spasm of shivering, but heforced himself to say, "The guards. You are really a prisoner, then?"

"They're here to protect me, so they say. They've been friendly enough. Come, sit here, let me get these

boots off, you're chilled to the bone!"

Regis let himself be led to an armchair, so ancient in design that until he was in the seat he was not surewhat it was. His feet came out of the boots numb and icy-cold. He was almost too weary to sit up andunlace his tunic; he sat with his hands hanging, his legs stretched out, finally with an effort put his stifffingers to the tunic-laces. He knew his voice sounded more irritible than he meant.

"I can manage for myself, Dani. You're my paxman, not my body-servant!"

Danilo, kneeling before the fire to dry Regis' boots, jerked upright as if stung. He said into the fire, "Lord Regis, I am honored to serve you in any way I may." Through the stiff formality of the words, Regis, wideopen again, felt something else, a wordless resonance of despair: He didn't mean it, then, about acceptingmy service. It was , . , it was only a way of atoning for what his kinsman had done....

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Without stopping to think, Regis was out of the chair, kneeling beside Dani on the hearth. His voice wasshaking, partly with the cold which threatened to rip him apart with shudders, partly with that intenseawareness of Dani's hurt.

"The Gods witness I meant it! It's only ... only ..." Suddenly he knew the right thing to say. "You

remember what a fuss it caused, when I expected anyone to wait on me, in the barracks!"

Their eyes caught and held. Regis had no idea whether it was his own thought or Danilo's: We wereboys then. And now ... how long ago that seems! Yet it was only last season! It seemed to Regis thatthey were looking back, as men, across a great chasm of elapsed time, at a shared boyhood. Where hadit gone?

With a sense of fighting off unutterable weariness-it seemed he had been fighting off this weariness aslong as he could remember-he reached for Danilo's hands. They felt hard, calloused, real, the only firm

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anchor-point in a shifting, dissolving universe. Momentarily he felt his hands going through Danilo's as if neither of them were quite solid. He blinked hard to focus his eyes, and saw a blue-haloed form in front of him. He could see through Danilo now, to the wall beyond. Trying to focus against the swarming fireflies that spun before his eyes, he remembered Javanne's warning, fight it, move around, speak. He tried to get his voice back into his throat

"Forgive me, Dani. Who should serve me if not my sworn man . . .?"

And as he spoke the words he felt, amazed, the texture of Danilo's relief: My people have served the

Hasturs for generations. Now I too am where I belong.

No! I do not want to be a master of men . . . !

But the swift denial was understood by both, not as a personal rejection, but the very embodiment ofwhat they both were, so that the giving of Danilo's service was the pleasure and the relief it was, so that Regis knew he must not only accept that service, but accept it fully, graciously.

Danilo's face suddenly looked strange, frightened. His mouth was moving but Regis could no longer hearhim, floating bodiless in the sparkling darkness. The base of his skull throbbed with ballooning pain. Heheard himself whisper, "I am ... in your hands . . ." Then the world slid side-wise and he felt himselfcollapse into Danilo's arms.

He never knew how he got there, but seconds later, it

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seemed, he felt searing pain all over his naked body, and found himself floating up to the chin in a great tub of boiling water. Danilo, kneeling at his side, was anxiously chafing his wrists. His head was splitting, but he could see solid objects again, and his own body was reassuringly firm. A servant was hovering around with clean garments, trying to attract Danilo's attention long enough to get his approval of them.

Regis lay watching, too languid to do anything but accept their ministrations. He noticed that Danilounobtrusively kept his own body between Regis and the Aldaran servant Danilo chased the man outquickly, muttering under his breath, "I'm not going to trust any of them alone with you!"