No reaction.
No movement, no fleeting expression of shock or pain. Nothing.
A moment, a blink, and we are dust . . .
Lord of Light, what could he say to Dan? Sorrywas so pale and futile a word.
And none of this would have happened had he, Regis, not been so weak as to allow Rinaldo the throne . . . Tiphani taking her own son to be indoctrinated . . . the predictable incursion of the Federation forces . . .
Sick at heart, Regis drew out the psychoactive gem. The starstone was warm from contact with the boy’s body. A pale flicker like the dying echo of fire still danced in its depths.
“No pulse!” the commander blurted. Someone else said, “He’s not breathing,” and another, “—can’t resuss—dagger too close to the heart—pull it out, might kill him—”
The commander barked: “Medics here, stat!”
“—never arrive in time—”
Regis blotted out the voices, the hovering figures. The only thing that mattered was that twist of brightness.
If Linnea were here—or even the most novice monitor—she would know what to do, how to start the boy’s heart and lungs. Regis had no training in such techniques, no way to reach anyone who did.
I cannot do this.
I cannot let him die.
Words reverberated through his mind: Light calls to Light.
Memory thundered through him, how he had opened himself—offered himself—to the power that men called the Lord of Light.
And something had answered, had filled him, flowed through him, usedhim to defeat Sharra.
Regis pressed the starstone against Felix’s red-streaked chest. Head bent, eyes closed in concentration, Regis shaped his thoughts into a prayer.
Save him . . . take my strength, use my Gift. Aldones, father of my fathers . . . let my life pass into this child . . .
Regis felt a quickening, a flicker of electric energy, in the stone under his hand. His fingers were sticky with Felix’s blood—blood as carrier of life—blood as conductor and amplifier of power . . .
And then he had no more words, only, Please, please. . .
Power answered. It rang like a crystalline bell in his mind, faintly at first, then louder. Time slowed. Between one breath and the next, the resonant clangor grew until it drove away all other awareness. The sound was beautiful past bearing and more terrible than night. It flooded him, jarred him from his moorings, shredded all resistance.
He had become a single vibrating crystaclass="underline" the Hastur Gift, the living matrix.
He could shape, direct, use this power as he wished. Or he could let himself be shaped and used by it. With it, he could stride like a god across the face of the world, blasting away all who stood against him. He could remake whole planets to his own desire.
Between his hands, the boy’s life force guttered.
He did not know what to do. He let go—
Light surged through him. He no longer grasped it; he shrank to a speck in an ocean of blue-white brilliance. Knowing it would burn him up like tinder, he gave himself to the light.
Without sight or hearing, he sensed patterns within the effulgence. A form coalesced, at first only a tracery, a suggestion of lines of force. Then details emerged . . . the metallic signature of a long, slender object, the resonances of liquids, gelatinous cells bright with renewed life-energy . . .
As if the boy’s body had turned to glass, Regis made out the dagger as it sat, nested in torn and punctured tissues, the tip almost touching the heart, the severed blood vessels, the nerves still paralyzed by shock.
Live . . .
Power reached through him, not his own will but something deep and sure. An invisible spark propagated through the muscles of the heart. At the same time, the edges of the arteries clamped down. The blood-filled space between the dagger and the pericardial sac took on a new, elastic density, holding the blade in place.
The heart chambers contracted, the first beat rough, but the next smooth and strong, rippling from top to bottom. Blood pounded through the major vessels. The diaphragm shuddered, then clenched under a cascade of nerve signals.
The light faded. Regis dropped into his own body, at once too hot and too cold, too solid and too fragile.
Beneath his palms, Felix’s chest rose in a heaving breath.
Rough hands hauled Regis to his feet. He began to protest, then realized these men had no idea what had just happened. The Terrans saw him as one of the hostage takers, in league with Haldred. Still caught in a maelstrom of grief and guilt and the exhilaration of the healing, he tried and failed to summon words.
“I’ve got a pulse!” The man kneeling on the other side of Felix looked up with an expression of astonishment.
Felix groaned and feebly lifted one arm.
“Lie still, son,” the commander said. “Help’s on the way.”
“Sir? What about this one?” asked one of the men holding Regis.
“Let him go,” the commander answered, his voice thick. “He’s not with—Sweet heavens, it’s Lord Hastur.” He got to his feet, brisk and efficient, and confronted Regis. “What in blazes are youdoing here?”
Regis glared back. Outrage flared, fueling his words. “Trying to rescue these children. Which I would have done without bloodshed if you had not come barging in. You are in direct violation of the Compact and, need I add, of Federation policy.”
“You savages! Do you think you can kidnap the Legate’s son, a Federation citizen, with impunity? That we would sit back and do nothing? It’s a miracle the kid’s still alive!” And he still might not make it.
Shaking off the grip of the two Spaceforce men, Regis drew himself up. He had not contradicted the commander’s use of the title, Lord Hastur. It was time he took back those responsibilities as well.
“There will be consequences,” Regis promised, “to the ones responsible for this outrage. But your presence here, your disregard for local sovereignty is not only illegal but inflammatory. It will be seen as an act of aggression, an abrogation of all we have worked to achieve between our two worlds.”
“When the safety of a Federation citizen is at risk, we have the right—”
“You have the right to ask Darkovan authorities for assistance, but you do nothave the right to single- handedly start a war! Is that what you want? Have you forgotten recent history? Do you think we are such backward savages,” Regis deliberately echoed the words of the Spaceforce man, “that we have no means to defend ourselves? Have you so quickly blotted out how the spaceport at Caer Donn was destroyed?”
The commander blanched.
“I will see to it those Darkovans responsible for this tragedy are held accountable,” Regis continued, more quietly now. “What you must do is remove your men and their weapons as quickly as possible.”
Just then, a trio in the uniforms of the Terran Medical Corps pelted into the foyer. Regis had no idea how they had arrived so fast. The commander directed them first to Felix, then to the other wounded. They set about examining the boy with their instruments. Regis did not understand a fraction of what they did, only that they meant to stabilize him for transport.
“He’s a lucky kid,” the head medic told the commander. His gaze flickered to Regis in his gore-stained shirt. He added in Terran Standard, “What about that one? He looks like one of the local aristocrats.”
“It’s not my blood,” Regis answered in the same language.
A few minutes later, the medics had brought in a rigid carrier for Felix and secured him to it. Regis approached the head medic. “Tell Dan—” his voice caught, then held firm, “tell the Legate how very sorry I am.”
“Nothing—to be sorry—” Felix stumbled, before the medics maneuvered his carrier through the doors.