The Shadow Matrix (41 page)

wry grin stole across his lips. "Damn, but you make me feel old!"

16

Margaret woke.

For a moment, she was not sure where she was. Then the faint moan of the wind

against the stone walls of her room bought her fully awake. She listened to the gusts

and smelled the odor of wet snow mingled with woodsmoke and the particular scent of

the silken hangings around the ceiling of the chamber. She was at Neskaya Tower, and

the storm that had battered the walls for two days was passing. Margaret realized how

weatherwise she had become in so brief a time, and had a pleasant sense of

accomplishment. Anticipating the weather was so much easier than mastering

telepathy.

She had been dreaming again. She thought she had been dreaming about the

dormitories at University, but now she realized it was another place with endless

corridors. Looking for something again. She sighed and turned onto one side,

snuggling beneath the covers.

What had she sought? If only she could remember!

It felt as if she had been looking for something all her life, running along dark

corridors and past shadowed rooms. There had been a time when those night journeys

had been full of terror. Now she knew the source of those memories, and they no

longer frightened her. Or, she told herself truthfully, they did not scare her quite so

badly.

Istvana Ridenow, who was now her teacher as well as her friend, said she would

probably never be completely free of the shadow which Ashara Alton had cast over her

for so many years. She had instructed Margaret in techniques that calmed her mind,

and that had helped. Still, just the thought of that terrible woman, who had enthralled

her when she was a child, was enough to set her shivering. Intellectually, she knew that

Ashara was no more. She her-

self had destroyed what remained of the Keeper months before. Emotionally, she didn't

quite believe it.

Margaret Alton smelled the balsam-scented sheets and blankets that covered her body,

and that other odor, the strange smell of the great matrices, charged with energy,

working above her. When she looked up, she could see the swathes of silk which hung

from the ceiling, now casting huge shadows in the dimness of the room. Her little harp

stood in one corner of the room, and there was a holo of Lew and Dio, but beyond that,

there was nothing very personal in the chamber. She had been tempted by a few things

in the marketplace, where she had gone with Caitlin Leynier, but she had only bought

some shawls and a set of petticoats. They were not up to Aaron's quality, and she knew

she was spoiled. She could have been packed and ready to depart from Neskaya in less

than an hour. Why was she so reluctant to settle in?

Maybe it was because her life had been so peripatetic before she came to Darkover.

Margaret knew this facile explanation was not the real reason she was not comfortable

making Neskaya her home for the foreseeable future. In spite of Istvana's efforts, and

the warm welcome she had received from the others at the Tower, she remained an

unenthusiastic student.

Margaret was restless, despite her efforts to be otherwise. Something deep within her

knew she was not going to remain at Neskaya very long. She could not define the

feeling, but she had it in her bones. It lacked the power of a foretelling, but it was

strong enough to trouble her. She had not discussed her feelings with Istvana, and had

done her best to conceal them. But Caitlin had asked her several times what was

bothering her, and she had been forced to make up excuses that left her feeling

dishonest. It was not a logical feeling, and after years of depending on logic, she felt

wary of trusting it.

After six months, she felt she had spent a lifetime on Darkover, and not a very quiet

one at that. No; closer to seven, she realized, and her heart pounded a bit faster. Soon

Rafaella would come back and take her away to Thendara for Midwinter. It had all

been arranged. If the winter storms didn't mess things up for her, she would be seeing

her father soon, and Mikhail as well. Sternly, she

banished her fears from her mind. The thought of him was too painful to dwell upon.

Margaret lifted her gloved hand and slid it out from beneath the covers. She held it

away from her, staring at its silhouette in the dimness. The matrix hidden beneath the

silk marked a division in her life, one she had not yet become reconciled to. She was

still Margaret Alton, Fellow of the University. But with each day, she became more this

other
person, this Marguerida Alton. Her marred hand seemed to represent all that she

had lost and gained.

It had been bad enough to find herself suddenly a telepath, but the addition of the

command voice was almost more than she could stand. She had worked on it with

Liriel at Arilinn, and after her adventure in the hills, it had seemed wise to ask Istvana

for additional help. She had not told the
leronis
about the bandits, but she had told her

about sending little Donal into the overworld. Margaret knew that Istvana was aware

she was holding something back, but the empath was too tactful to press her.

It had been a good choice, for Istvana, with her well-earned reputation for innovation,

had devised several useful exercises that gave Margaret a better understanding of this

part of her
laran.
If only the rest of it were so easily tamed!

She lowered her arm and tucked her hand back under the covers. The remnants of the

dream intruded on her musing with a rush. She had been deliberately avoiding thinking

about it for several minutes. She could feel the dream, simmering like a pot of water,

right at the back of her mind, getting ready to come to the boil.

What had she been looking for? The dream had gotten hazy as she became more

awake, but there was a disturbing
something
that lingered, like the odor of smoke in an

empty house. She hadn't been looking for something, not really. No. It was more as if

someone were calling to her.

At that thought, Margaret's mind immediately went to Mikhail Hastur. He was in

Thendara now, and hardly likely to be up in the middle of the night trying to reach her.

He had done that occasionally while he was at Halyn House, but since his return to the

city, he had only contacted her during daylight hours. Of course, he might have been

dreaming about her. It would not be the first time they had

trysted in a dream. That was always so sweet, so tender, that she always woke up

smiling.

Well, not always tender, she admitted, feeling her face heat in the darkness. He was,

after all, a man, with the healthy sexual energy that she knew men possessed. She had

caught the edges of a few dreams that were so passionate, so profoundly explicit, that

Margaret felt ravished when she woke. It was thrilling, but it made her squirm at the

same time. She still could not bring herself to think about the actuality—the hot,

sweaty, moaning event that might someday await her. All the years of overshadowing

had left her with a distaste for the physical, and she was not certain she would ever

overcome it.

Margaret wrenched her mind away from those memories and tried to think of

something else. Poor Mikhail! He felt so dreadful about how he had handled things

with Priscilla Elhalyn and her children, even though Margaret had told him that he had

done the best he could. He was, she decided, a little like her father, with an overlarge

sense of responsibility, and a perfectionist as well. That thought made her smile in the

darkness.
How ordinary I am, to fall in love with a fellow like my father. After all the

trouble I had with Lew, you would think I would have jumped at the chance to choose

an ordinary man like Rafael Lanart. Not Gabe, though. There is dull, and then there is

maddening; Gabriel Lanart-Alton would have driven me over the edge in a tenday.

Margaret did not like how much she missed Mikhail, how his absence was like a hole

inside of her. It made her fee} powerless and out of control whenever she let herself

think about him, and she hated that. All the feelings she knew she should have learned

as an adolescent—the healthy, natural lust, the feeling of being madly in love with

some handsome boy—had been repressed by Ashara's interference. But she could not

escape the longing for his laughter, the way his eyes crinkled and the pure sound of it.

And Mikhail was the only person Margaret knew that she felt she could discuss

anything with—even her father was not so accessible.

Reluctantly, Margaret drew her mind away from the image of Mikhail, and tried to

focus on the dream still fluttering in her mind. She had had many dreams of this

sort, lots of corridors and closed doors, shadow places. Sometimes she dreamed of the

dormitories at University, but other times she walked a maze which resembled Comyn

Castle. She had always thought she was looking for something, though what it could

be she did not know.

This dream was different. She did not feel so much that she was seeking something as

that something was seeking her. Calling her.
name.
Was it just some dreamer, Mikhail

or another, or was it something else entirely?

At the thought of her name, Margaret Alton, she had a sense that whatever it was was

no dreamer at all. Whatever it was, it felt old. No, ancient was a better term. She

shivered and huddled down under her blankets, drawing them tightly around her

shoulders. The thought of something ancient calling to her brought up memories of a

shining chamber and Ashara Alton. Hadn't she destroyed the last remnant of that old

woman in the overworld?

Her palm burned beneath the soft glove, and Margaret could feel the throbbing along

the lines of energy. It was not particularly painful, but it was powerful.
Nothing is ever

entirely destroyed, is it?
she thought.
I don't want to have to go back into the

overworld! Not now, not ever! What do you want from me! Whoever you are, why can't

you leave me alone!

She was trembling and breathing as hard as if she had been running kilometers, not

lying in her bed. Margaret tried to still her rising hysteria. It had been weeks since

she'd had an attack of the terrors, and she had thought she was over them. Ashara Alton

was no more, and she could not hurt her again. Tears began to spill down her face as

she struggled with her fears.

There was a light tap on the door, and Margaret jumped at the sound. "What is it?" she

called, her voice high and childlike.

Istvana Ridenow opened the door and entered. "That was my question. My dear child,

half the technicians in the Tower are having the cobwobblies. It is fortunate we were

not doing anything very vital! What's wrong?"

"Damn the Alton Gift! I didn't mean to broadcast, and you would think with all this

silk around me, I couldn't! I had a dream, not a bad dream, but a rather spooky one.

The dream itself was just the same old thing I've been

dreaming for years. I was in a place with a lot of halls and closed doors. I've always

had those, but they seem to be more frequent recently."

"Yes, I know. You told me about one or two of them. How was this one different?"

"I felt as if someone were calling me, and that made me think of ... of
her!
That was

what panicked me."

"There, there,
chiya.
Ashara is gone, and she can't hurt you any longer."

"Tell that to my subconscious!" The anger charged along her blood, and some of the

fear dissipated. Rage helped, but she hated being angry. It was all too reminiscent of

Lew Alton's inexplicable furies when she was younger, even though she never smashed

dishes or roared in the night. It made her feel stupid and helpless, in spite of its

cleansing qualities.

Istvana did not answer. Instead she sat down on the chair on the other side of the room

and closed her eyes. Margaret waited 'quietly, and the remaining terror faded away. She

looked at the petite woman, blonde hair now faded to silver, and a smile began to play

across her mouth. She was very like Dio in appearance, and she had some of the same

quality of assurance that had never failed to calm her. But it hurt to look at her, because

she did not know if she would ever see Dio alive and whole again. Sometimes the

physical similarity between the two Ridenow women was almost painful, but not

tonight.

"Yes. You are right. Something called you. I heard it,

too, though I didn't pay much attention. I think I must

have assumed it was Mikhail." Istvana spoke slowly, as if

still deep in thought.

.

"Why?" Margaret felt her cheeks flame.

"Chiya,
all of us are aware of ... well, it is hard to ignore how much you two care for

one another. It's very sweet, actually. I mean, ordinarily young love is rather like