The Alton Gift (18 page)

"Father Master Conn." Danilo bowed his head. "I would be honored."

Several days later, Lew was even more certain that Danilo's suggestion of going to St. Valentine's was worth trying. Danilo was also right that the nightmares had another, deeper root than old memories of Sharra. He could not go on as he had, that much was certain.

With some trepidation, Lew went to tell Marguerida of his decision. He found her breakfasting with Domenic and Yllana in the family apartment. Sun streamed through the half-opened windows, glowing on the wood paneling, and filling the air with warmth. A bowl of rosalys adorned the center of the table, surrounded by a half-empty basket of spiral buns, a bowl that once contained hard-boiled eggs, now filled with broken shells, and a platter of sliced peaches.

Although the conversation drew to an abrupt halt at Lew's entrance, he caught his grandson's quickly masked look of misery, the subtle hunching of his shoulders, the exasperated tautness around Mar-guerida's eyes.

"Good morning, Grandpapa." Yllana had shed her initial hesitation and looked directly at him.

"My apologies for the intrusion," Lew said.

Marguerida's expression softened. "It's a pleasure to see you, Father.

You aren't interrupting anything. I think we've beaten that particular horse into the ground. Come, sit down with us. Will you take a cup of
jaco
? Something to eat?"

Lew took the seat she indicated, at her right side, but declined any refreshment.

"Since Domenic and Yllana are both here, perhaps we can have our discussion." It was fitting that Marguerida be present, as well. The talk would give him time to find the right way to tell her he would be leaving.

"You mean the matter we spoke of the night of the Festival ball?" Marguerida asked.

Lew nodded, and then turned to his grandchildren. "You both have the Alton Gift, and it would be irresponsible not to caution you about the seriousness of its use."

"Oh, Grandpapa, Mother has lectured us about that since we were babies!" Yllana said, rolling her eyes.

"Yllana, you will speak respectfully to your grandfather," Marguerida said.

"It's all right, Marja," Lew said, giving Yllana a smile. "I'm the one who has been neglectful, and you, clearly, have not."

"Of course, I talked to them!" Marguerida shifted in her chair, her golden eyes clouding momentarily. She had had no warning, and when her Gifts awakened in full on her return to Darkover, she had been frightened and confused. "I had no idea what I was capable of, if I was caught off guard, or frightened… or angry. After what happened to me, I was not about to let my own children grow up unprepared."

"My father drilled it into me even before we knew I had the Gift." Lew glanced at Domenic and Yllana. "
The unbridled anger of an Alton can kill
."

"Any
laran
can be dangerous if misused," Domenic pointed out. "That's one of the first principles I learned at Neskaya. 'We swear never to enter the mind of another, save to help or heal, and then only with consent.'"

"But ordinary
laran
allows contact only with other telepaths," Lew said. "With the Alton Gift, you can force rapport with anyone, Gifted or not. You can control not only their thoughts, but their actions, their emotions." He hesitated to use frank language with his young grand-

daughter, but ignorance would be far worse. She was Alton and therefore capable of great harm through ignorance or carelessness. "Unasked for, uninvited, such a contact amounts to psychic rape."

Yllana flinched, then regained control of herself. Her previous saucy mood evaporated, replaced with seriousness. Her expression reminded Lew of Mikhail; she was, after all, Mikhail's daughter, with much of his steadiness of temperament.

Marguerida reached out to brush her daughter's wrist in a telepath's light touch. "You need not fear losing control and abusing someone in that manner,
chiya
. I have every confidence in your good judgment. And in yours, too, Nico."

Lew sat back, sensing the deep bond between his daughter and her children. Her faith in them clearly helped them to think of themselves as responsible, to become the best they could be. He did not know how she had managed such a connection with her children while adapting to Darkover, supporting her husband, and continuing her own work.

He gazed at Domenic, with his intent, carefully guarded expression, and bright, steady Yllana. They had not been taught as he had, and that was not necessarily a bad thing. No one had thundered warnings at them or forced them to submit to a potentially fatal ordeal in order to prove their place in the Comyn. Their minds were unscarred, their outlooks open and earnest. Perhaps they would not make his mistakes.

"I hate being afraid of what might happen if I lose my temper," Yllana said, wrinkling her brow. "I've never understood why such a talent was developed in the first place. It's of no use in everyday life, like telepathy."

"It's said to be a very ancient Gift, from the breeding programs of the Ages of Chaos," Lew explained. "When I was a boy, it was even rarer than it is now. In fact, only my father and myself were known to have it." He omitted mentioning his dead brother, Marius, seeing no point in dragging up that tragedy. "Then, it was believed that only an Alton by blood could possess the Gift, but the old Comyn lineages have been so intermixed, this is no longer the case."

"Yes, Illona Rider has the Alton Gift, too," Marguerida said, nodding. "I was relieved when she agreed to study at a Tower, so there would be no question of her responsible use of her
laran"

"Since she is
nedestra
and has the Gift," Domenic added thought-

fully, "it is likely that others outside of the Comyn, perhaps even those who do not know their lineage, might have this or other Gifts." He glanced at his mother, and Lew felt the leap of tension between them.

"That would be horrible, wouldn't it?" Yllana said, "for someone who didn't even know they had the Alton Gift to use it. They could kill or cripple someone without even meaning to! Oh, this should not be called a Gift, but a Curse!"

"No, you must never think of yourself as cursed!" Marguerida cried, her voice resonating on the edge of alarm. "
Laran
is a tool like any other, and it can be used for great good. We must take care to never use it for petty or selfish purposes."

"That is a worthy ideal," Lew mused, "but one that too many fall short of."

Domenic's head shot up. "Do you mean Alanna?"

"No, why would I think of her?" Lew said, surprised. "I spoke only of myself."

"Father, surely you have nothing to reproach yourself with!" Marguerida laid one hand on his good arm, so that Lew felt an outpouring of concern. "You are the least selfish and most self-critical man I know. Darkover owes you a tremendous debt."

Perhaps
, Lew thought,
but at a cost I can no longer bear
.

For a long moment, no one spoke. Then Lew roused himself to pick up the thread of conversation. "I, too, wondered about the original purpose of the Alton Gift. Surely, it was meant to be used with the greatest care and deliberation and only in desperate circumstances."

"A weapon when all else had failed?" Marguerida said. Images of the Battle of Old North Road and its aftermath flickered across her mind.

"A final defense for the Comyn," Lew added, although the words brought little comfort.

The conversation went on only a little while longer. Domenic answered questions about his training at Neskaya, reassuring Lew that he had been properly taught. Yllana was to return with Katherine and Hermes Aldaran at the end of the season.

"We will miss her terribly," Marguerida said, "but I believe she will benefit from exposure to other techniques… as well as getting away from home, with all its irritations."

Yllana rolled her eyes again, but Domenic's face tightened in a scowl, quickly suppressed.

"That reminds me," Yllana said, brightening. "I've been meaning to ask you, Mother. Terese and Belle—Sibelle Ridenow, that is—and I have come up with the most wonderful plan! Wouldn't it be lovely if Belle could come with us to Castle Aldaran? We could take our lessons together and keep each other company."

"Lessons? Has she
laran"
Lew asked.

"Oh, yes! She has the Ridenow Gift of empathy, at least Terese and I think so. One time, when I fell and scraped my elbow, Belle cried as if she were the one who was hurt. You should see how gentle and kind she is with the horses, as if she knows what they are feeling."

After an instant of awkward silence, Marguerida said, "Surely the matter should be taken up with Sibelle's father."

"Lady Katherine said she must discuss it with you first. She'll say yes if you agree. Please do! It will be so good to have friends there."

Marguerida looked to Domenic. "What do you think of this scheme? How would you feel about Sibelle going away?"

Lew caught the faint lightening of Domenic's expression. "It might be the best thing for her, to be away from home, fostered by someone like Lady Katherine, who has lived offworld and does not bow down to her kinsmen as if she had no will and no intelligence of her own."

"Of course not!" Yllana giggled. "What do you think we girls are, spineless rabbit-horns?"

"Certainly not traditional Darkovan women!" Marguerida had started to take another sip of
jaco
and sputtered.

"I'm not being flippant," Domenic continued. "Sibelle only agreed to her father's proposal because she thought she had no choice. She mustn't be punished for trying to please her father. I'm not going to marry her, as I made abundantly clear to
Dom
Francisco after the ball."

"Marry her?" Yllana's mood went from amused to aghast. "But she's younger than I am, and I'm not nearly grown-up enough."

"You are more mature than many young ladies your age," her mother said, "but I have always thought it barbaric to consider women good for nothing more than producing sons and heirs."

"Or for the alliances and advantages their marriages bring to their families," Domenic said forcefully.

"I think Domenic has the right of it," Lew commented. "I knew the
damisela
was young, but I had not realized—I had not thought Francisco capable of pressuring a child into marriage."

Marguerida gave him a sharp, dark look. She, at least, had had no qualms about suspecting the Ridenow lord's malice.

"It won't be the first mistake I've made," Lew said, as much to himself as to the others, "or, I fear, the last."

"Father, you are not responsible for that horrible man's misdeeds," Marguerida insisted. "Nico, I must say I am relieved that you know your own mind in this matter."

"Oh, I do. And expressed it rather forcefully."

"Did you, now?" Marguerida was clearly pleased. "Well, then, I shall do my part and enlist Katherine's help in salvaging poor Sibelle's future."

Yllana clapped her hands in delight. "We are all going away at the end of the season, then. May I go and tell Terese now?"

"You may go, but you must find some way to keep quiet until things are sorted out with
Dom
Francisco," Marguerida replied. "It would not do for him to get wind of the plan before Katherine has secured his permission."

"Please forgive me," Domenic said, rising as his sister left the room, "but I also have business to attend to. Mother, Grandfather." He delivered a short bow to each of them and left.

Without the two young people, the room seemed empty, the gentle sunlight too still. Sighing, Marguerida turned to Lew, "I don't know what's gotten into Nico lately. He just won't listen."

"He seems reasonable enough to me," Lew commented.

"That's because he was on his best behavior, but if you had been here earlier, you might think very differently."

Lew had rarely heard Marguerida so distressed by the behavior of her children. Trying to be supportive, he said, "As I remember, you were the same at his age. For several years neither Diotima nor I could make you see sense."

A hint of a storm flickered across Marguerida's features, for during most of her childhood Lew had been a cold, distant parent, and she had retaliated by becoming rebellious and headstrong. Since her return to Darkover, however, they had become closer than either of them had dreamed possible.

"The lad will come into his own, in good time," Lew said. "He handled himself well the other night at the Castle gates, and he's learning more all the time."

Marguerida picked up her cup
of jaco
and stared at its congealed surface. "It was one thing when he wanted to wander through Thendara. Now he's got it into his head to make a tour of all the Towers, trying to enlist the Keepers in a search for latent telepaths. Where he got the idea, I don't know, maybe from Danilo's stories of Regis."

"His wanderlust developed at an early age, as I recall."

"I suppose you mean that it is too late to change his basic temperament," Marguerida said. "Or mine."

"I am not saying that Domenic should go alone and unarmed wherever he pleases in the Seven Domains," Lew said. "Instead of forbidding him the freedom he so obviously craves, why not encourage him to do it safely? Give him the advice you yourself would have heeded when you were his age."