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Dyan said, "Isn't that dangerous, too, Kennard? If the power of Sharra is raised elsewhere-"

"After long discussion, we have determined that this is the safest course. It is our opinion that there are no telepaths anywhere in the Empire who are capable of using it. And at interstellar distances, it cannot draw upon the activated spots near Aldaran, which is always a risk while it remains on Darkover. Even the forge-folk could not hold it inactive now. Offworld, it will probably be dormant until a means of destroying it can be devised."

"It's a risk," Dyan said.

"Everything is a risk, while anything of such power remains active in the universe anywhere," Kennard

said. "We can only do the best we can with the tools and techniques we have."

Hastur said, "You are going to take it offworld yourself, then? What of your son? He was at least partlyresponsible for its use-"

"No," said Danilo suddenly, and Regis realized that Danilo now had as much right as anyone there to speak in Council, "he refused to have any part in its misuse, and endured torture to try to prevent it!"

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"And," Kennard said, "he risked his life and came near to losing it, to bring it to Arilinn and break the circle of destruction. If he and his wife had not risked their lives-and if the girl had not sacrificed her own-Sharra would still be raging in the hills and none of us would sit here peacefully deciding who is to sit in Council after us!" Suddenly the Alton rage flared out, lashing them all. "Do you know the price he paid

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for you Comyn, who had despised him and treated him with contempt, and not one of you, not a damned

one of you, have so much as asked whether he will live or die?"

Regis felt flayed raw by Kennard's pain. He was sent to Neskaya, but he knew he should somehowhave contrived to send a message.

Kennard said harshly, "I came to ask leave to take him to Terra, where he may regain his health, andperhaps save his reason."

"Kennard, by the laws of the Comyn, you and your heir may not both go offworld at once."

Kennard looked at Hastur in open contempt and said, "The laws of the Comyn be damnedl What have Igained for keeping them, what have my ten years in Council gained me? Try to stop me, damn you. Ihave another son, but I'm not going through all that rigamarole again. You accepted Lew, and look whatit's done for him!" Without the slightest vestige of formal leave-taking, he turned his back on them all andstrode out of the Crystal Chamber.

Regis got hurriedly to his feet and went after him; he knew Danilo followed noiselessly at his heels. Hecaught up with Kennard in the corridor. Kennard whirled, still hostile, and said, "What the hell-"

"Uncle, what of Lew? How is he? I have been in Neskaya, I could not-don't damn me with them,

Uncle,"

"How would you expect him to be?" Kennard demanded, still truculent, then his face softened. "Not very well, Regis. You haven't seen him since we brought him from Arilum?" "I didn't know he was well enough to travel." "He isn't. We brought him in a Terran plane from Arilinn. Maybe they can save his hand. It's still not certain." "You're going to Terra?"

"Yes, we leave within the hour. I haven't time to argue with your damned Council and I won't have Lew badgered." Angry as he sounded, Regis knew it was despair, not hostility, behind Kennard's harsh voice. He tried to barricade

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himself against the despairing grief. At Nesfcaya he had been taught the basic techniques of closing out the worst of it; he no longer felt wholly naked, wholly stripped. He could face Dyan now, and even with Danilo they need not lower their barriers unless they both wished it

"Uncle, Lew and I have been friends since I was only a little boy. I-I would like to see him to say

farewell."

Kennard regarded him with hostility for some seconds, at last saying, "Come along, then. But don'tblame me if he won't speak to you." His voice was not steady either.

Regis could not help recalling the last time he had stood here in the great hall of the Alton rooms, before Kennard and his grandfather. And the time before that. Lew was sitting on a bench before the fireplace. Exactly where he was sitting that night when Regis appealed to him to waken his laran.

Kennard asked gently, "Lew, will you speak to Regis? He came to bid you farewell."

Lew's barriers were down and Regis felt the naked surge of pain, rejection: / don't want anyone, I don't

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want anyone to see me now. It was like a blow, sending Regis reeling. But he braced himself against it,

saying very softly, "Bredu-"

Lew turned and Regis shrank, almost with horror, from the first sight of that hideously altered face. Lewhad aged twenty years in the few short weeks since they had parted. His face was a terrible network ofhealed and half-healed scars. Pain had furrowed deep lines there, and the expression in bis eyes was ofsomeone who has looked on horrors past endurance. One hand was bundled in clumsy bandages andbraced in a sling. He tried to smile but it was only a grimace.

"Sorry. I keep forgetting, I'm a sight to frighten children into fits."

Regis said, "But Fm not a child, Lew." He managed to block out the other man's pain and misery andsaid as calmly as he could manage, "I suppose the worst of the scars will heal."

Lew shrugged, as if that was a matter of deadly indifference. Regis still looked uneasily at him; now thatthey were together he was uncertain why he had come. Lew had gone dead to all human contact andwanted it that way. Any closer contact between them, any attempt to reach him with laran, to revive theirold closeness, would simply breach that merciful numbness and revive Lew's active suffering. The

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quicker he said goodbye and went away again, the better it would be.

He made a formal bow, resolving to keep it that way, and said, "A good journey, then, cousin, and asafe return." He started to move backward. He bumped into Danflo in his retreat, and Danilo's handclosed over his wrist, the touch opening a blaze of rapport between them. As clearly as if Danilo hadspoken aloud, Regis felt the intense surge of his distress:

No, Regist Don't shut it aU out, don't withdraw from himt Can't you see he's dying inside there, lockedaway from everyone he loves? He's got to know that you know what he's suffering, that you don't shrinkfrom him! I can't reach him, but you can because you've loved him, and you must, before he slams downthe last barrier and locks everyone out forever. Ifs his reason at stake, maybe his life!

Regis recofled. Then, torn, agonized, he realized that this, too, was the burden of his heritage: to acceptthat nothing, nothing in the human mind, was too fearful to face, that what one person could suffer,another could share. He had known that when he was only a chad, before his laran was fully awake. Hehadn't been afraid then, or ashamed, because he wasn't thinking of himself then at all, but only of Lew,because he was afraid and in pain.

He let go of Danilo's hand and took a step toward Lew. One day-it flashed through his mind at randomand, it seemed, irrelevantly-as the telepathic men of his caste had always done, he would go down, withthe woman bearing his child, into the depths of agony and the edge of his death, and he would be able,for love, to face it. And for love he could face this, too. He went to Lew. Lew had lowered his headagain. Regis said, "Bredu," and stood on tiptoe, embracing his kinsman, and deliberately laying himselfopen to all of Lew's torment, taking the full shock of rapport between them.

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Grief. Bereavement. Guilt. The shock of loss, of mutilation. The memory of torture and terror. Andabove all, guilt, terrible guilt even at being alive, alive when those he had loved were dead....

For a moment Lew fought to shut away Regis' awareness, to block him out, too. Then he drew a long,shaking breath, raised his uninjured arm and pressed Regis close.

.,. you remember now. I know, I know, you love me, and you have never betrayed that love ...

"Goodbye, bredu," he said, in a sharp aching voice which somehow hurt Regis far less than the calm controlled formality, and kissed Regis on the cheek. "If the Gods will, we shall meg! again. And if not, may they be with you always." He let Regis go, and Regis knew he could not heal him, nor help him much, not now. No one could. But perhaps, Regis thought, perhaps, he had kept a crack open, just enough to let Lew remember that beside grief and guilt and loss and pain, there was love in the world,

too.

And then, out of his own forfeited dreams and hope, out of the renunciation he had made, still raw in hismind, he offered the only comfort he could, laying it like a gift before his friend:

"But you have another world, Lew. And you are free to see the stars."

A note from the publisher concerning:

THE FRIENDS OF DARKOVER

So popular have been the novels of the planet Darkover that an organization of readers and fans hascome into being, virtually spontaneously. Several meetings have been held at major science fictionconventions, and more recently specially organized around the various "councils" of the Friends of Darkover, as the organization is now known.

The Friends of Darkover is purely an amateur and voluntary group. It has no paid officers and has notestablished any formal membership dues. What it does have is an offset journal called Dark-over Newsletter, published from four to six times a year which carries information on meetings,correspondence concerning the aspects and problems raised in the Darkover works, and news of future Darkover novels and critical commentaries.

Contact may be made by writing to the Friends of Darkover, Thendara Council, Box 72, Berkeley, CA

94701, and enclosing a dollar for a four-issue trial subscription.

(This notice is inserted gratis as a service to readers. DAW Books is in no way connected with this

organization professionally or commercially.)

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