Something in the tenderness of Dan’s posture, the way he stroked Tiphani’s hair, and the sweet rumble of his voice touched Regis unexpectedly. Beneath the fear lay a woman who was deeply loved, a mother grievously worried for her child.
Regis took a seat beside her, beyond casual touch, yet close enough to feel the shimmer of almost- laranemanating from her shuddering form. She was not Comyn, she was not even Darkovan. He had encountered a range of telepathic talents in off-worlders in the last decade, since he had sent out an invitation throughout the Empire as part of Project Telepath. People with true psychic abilities, not parlor-trick charlatans, were rare, often near psychotic. Tiphani seemed sane enough, just distraught as any mother in this situation might be.
The next moment, the awareness vanished. Tiphani’s mind clamped down around her fragmentary gift so completely that she might not have had any telepathic ability at all. In her position as wife to the legate, she must have encountered psychically-Gifted Comyn. Untrained and culturally isolated, she would have had no preparation for contact with other telepaths. The resulting confusion must have fueled discomfort, turning awkwardness into distrust, suspicion into outright hostility.
“I apologize for the intrusion,” Regis said, “but for the sake of your son, I must ask you a few questions, MestraLawton.”
She gave a shuddering sigh and lifted her head. Huge violet eyes turned toward him. Even with her cheeks reddened with weeping, she was beautiful.
“You aren’t a doctor. What can you do?”
“No,” he admitted, “but nonetheless, I am here to help.”
“Dearest,” Dan said, “it won’t hurt to let him try.”
Tiphani’s hands tightened around the object she held; Regis could not see exactly what it was, most likely some religious token. The hectic color drained from her cheeks, leaving her skin as clear as porcelain.
“I’m sorry,” she said in a voice that threatened to break. “I was ungracious when your intentions were kind. I don’t know what I can add to Dr. Allison’s diagnosis.”
“Sometimes, an insignificant detail is the key,” Regis said. “While your memory is fresh, tell me as much as you can about your son’s activities today. Did he seem in usual health in the morning? What did he buy in the market?”
“You’re not suggesting I deliberately poisoned my own child!” Quivering in indignation, Tiphani gathered herself to spring to her feet. “Or exposed him to—I am a decent, God-fearing woman!”
Regis wondered what fear of any of the gods had to do with a sick child. “Let me understand you clearly, mestra.Neither of you made any purchases? Could the boy have acquired a small item without your knowledge?”
The woman glanced at her husband, her eyes streaked with red, and then at the altar. She slumped back on the bench. “I did my best. Daniel, believe me! I took the filthy thing away from him as soon as I realized.Oh God, it’s all my fault! If only I had not been weak in letting Felix have his way! If only I had watched him more closely—”
She broke off, too distraught to continue. Dan did his best to comfort her. She turned her face against his shoulder.
“You took something away from Felix?” Dan murmured into her hair. “What was it?”
Tiphani fumbled in her breast pocket and drew out a wad of fabric tied with a drawstring, on a long loop made to be worn around the neck. The cloth was a handkerchief, the kind that could be purchased for a few reisin any market. A crude design had been painted on it. With disgust, Regis realized that it was a tourist’s version of the pouches in which many Comyn carried their personal starstones. His own matrix was shielded by triple layers of insulating silk. A piece of blue glass might well have substituted for a genuine matrix stone, which might be offensive but not criminal. Exposed to an unkeyed stone, without guidance or supervision, a latent telepath risked madness or death. Who in their right mind would sell such a thing?
Only a head-b lind fool, who could not tell the difference . . . or someone who intended this to happen.Regis suppressed a twinge of paranoia, for the Comyn had been particular targets of the World Wreckers assassins.
Deliberately not looking at Regis, Tiphani thrust the little bag into her husband’s hand.
“I’d better take it,” Regis said. Handling the bag as if it were a snake that might bite him, Dan passed it over. Regis studied the little bundle for a moment, sensing a pulse of jagged power. The thin cloth provided a barrier to physical touch but none at all to psychic energy.
I’m not a Keeper. I shouldn’t even be holding it.But who else was there? Thendara no longer possessed a working Tower, and Linnea Storn was hundreds of miles away. A tendril of longing brushed his heart. When she had left, after only a few years together, he had not realized how much he would miss her.
He closed his fingers around the bag and said to Tiphani, “When you have recovered, join me in the boy’s room.” He did not dare to say more, to offer even the illusion of hope.
When Regis returned to Felix’s room, the boy’s condition was unchanged. Danilo let out a low whistle as Regis held out the wad of cloth.
“Is that it?” Jason asked.
Regis nodded. “Open one of the boy’s hands. I’ll drop it on his palm. We might need to close his fingers around it, but be careful not to touch the stone.”
The boy’s fingers were thin, yet long and graceful. There were only five of them, Regis noted, but many of the Comyn had only five. Taking a deep breath, he lowered the bundle to the opened hand and drew out his eating knife.
“Careful,” Danilo murmured.
“Pray to your holy saints, Danilo, that he doesn’t have another seizure while I’m doing this.”
The sharp point of the knife slid easily beneath the knotted cord. The fibers parted with only a little resistance. Regis let out his breath. With his fingertips, he drew apart the folds of cloth. The boy moaned and whipped his head from side to side. Danilo grabbed Felix’s forearm to hold it steady.
A flash of blue-white light appeared in the folded cloth. Regis tipped the pouch, sliding the starstone onto Felix’s exposed palm.
Immediately, Regis had to look away. Ribbons of liquid light twisted within the heart of the stone. Nausea rose up in him, mixed with something akin to euphoria. Motes of brightness jigged and danced behind his eyes, as they had when he almost died from threshold sickness.
With a practiced mental gesture, Regis raised his barriers. The sensations ended abruptly. He knew that what he had experienced was only a fraction of what raged through the boy’s mind. He remembered how his older sister, Javanne, had guided him through attuning his starstone to his mind.
As he curled his fingers over Felix’s, closing them around the chip of faceted brilliance, Danilo reached out with one hand and placed it on top.
A shudder ran down the boy’s body, very different from his previous convulsive spasms. This was, Regis sensed, a wave of tissue-deep relief, of being made whole again.