I would never know. In the days of the Compact, knowledge of those weapons had been destroyed, too, and perhaps it was as well that it should be so. Who could have foreseen, in those days, that descendants of the Comyn should somehow discover the ancient talisman of Sharra, and raise that raging fire?
I looked around the shores of the Lake with a sudden shiver.
Kadarin! Kadarin had the Sharra matrix, and he would try, perhaps, to force me back within it—
In the old days at Aldaran, Kadarin and Beltran had raised dozens of fanatical believers, ready to let their own raw emotion rage forth, be drawn into the raging fires of Sharra, feeding all that raw hungry mind power into the destroying flames to be loosed on the city… could he bring such a force to Thendara, could he recapture me to loose that destroying power in my mind?… I trembled, looking at the hills, feeling that somehow I was being watched, that Kadarin lurked somewhere, waiting to seize me, force me back to the power-pole of Sharra, feeding that unholy flame!
And Sharra will rise and destroy and burn me wholly away in ftre…all my hate, all my rage and torment…
Rafe Scott was not at the graveside. Yet he had been one of my brother’s few friends. Had Kadarin seized him too, drawn him back into Sharra? Dizziness seized me, I saw men riding, an army on the road, marching on Thendara—
Andres’s hand on my shoulder steadied me. “Easy, Lew,” he muttered. “There’s not much more. We’ll be away from here soon, and then you can rest.”
Rest be damned! With all this closing in on us, Sharra’s matrix free and in Kadarin’s hands once more, there would be no rest for me for some time.
Hoofbeats! I tensed, my hand gripping the hilt of the light ceremonial sword I had been persuaded to wear for this occasion. Kadarin with his rabble, ready to capture me and drag me into slavery to Sharra once more? But the riders came slowly to the graveside, and I saw they wore the uniform of the Castle Guard. Regis Hastur slid from his horse and came slowly to the graveside. I had wondered what had happened to him; he had been there when Marius died and the house was burned…
He stood for a moment over the grave and said quietly, “I did not know Marius well, and it is my sorrow. But once I heard him speak, in a tavern, the kind of words which we need in Council. His death is upon all our heads here; and here I promise that I will have the courage to speak the words he never had a chance to say in Council.”
He looked up expectantly, and behind Regis I saw the tall, lean figure of Dyan Ardais, in the ceremonial gray and black of his Domain. He came to the graveside, and looked at the open grave; but he did not speak, merely picked up a handful of soil and cast it quietly into the grave. Then, after a long silence, he said, “Rest well, kinsman; and may all the folly and wrong which brought you to birth rest here with you.” He turned away from the grave and said, “Lord Regis persuaded me that it was well to guard you; in these days there are enemies and Comyn should not ride unguarded. We will escort you in safety back to the Castle.”
In silence, then, I turned from my brother’s grave, and we went to our horses. As Lerrys mounted, I said quietly, “It was good of you to come, kinsman. Thank you.”
His fair face darkened and he said fiercely, “It wasn’t for you, damn you, it was for Marius!” He turned his back on me, pulling himself up, with a dancer’s agile movement, into the saddle. He wore Darkovan dress and was heavily cloaked against the fierce cold of the hills, in wool and leather, not the elegant silks and synthetics of the pleasure worlds.
I hauled myself, awkwardly, one-handed, into the saddle. Regis said from his horse, “I would have come sooner. But I felt it necessary to get leave to bring guards. I never had a chance to tell you; Beltran is on the road, and he brings what could almost be called an army. Beltran has no love for you. And if Kadarin’s at large—”
I said, grimacing, “Don’t tell me Hastur wouldn’t be relieved if Beltran caught up with me—or I broke my neck!”
He looked down at his saddlehorn. Then he said very quietly, “I am Hastur too, Lew. My grandfather and I have had differences before this, and we will have them afterward. But you must believe me: he would not wish you to fall into Kadarin’s hands. That would be true no matter what he felt about you personally. And he bears you no ill will. He was stupid and wrong-headed about Marius, perhaps. But whatever he may have felt, you are Lord Armida, and head of the Alton Domain, and there is nothing he can do about that; and he will accept it with such grace as he must. Your father was his friend.”
I looked away across the hills. Danvan Hastur had never been unkind to me. I took up the reins, and we rode, side by side, for a little while. Mist from the Lake of Hali floated in wisps on our trail, covered Marius’s silent grave, where he lay among the Comyn before him. Their troubles were over; mine lay ahead of me, on the trail. My hand was busy about the reins; I could not let it go to grip at the hilt of my sword, and I felt uneasy, as if somewhere at the back of my mind I could see Kadarin, surrounded by his fanatics, could see Thyra’s strange golden eyes so much like Marjorie’s. Where was Rafe? Had Kadarin seized on him too? Rafe feared Sharra, almost as much as I, but could he stand against Kadarin?
Could I? Would I let them force me back again into those fearful fires? I had not had the courage to die, before— Would I live, craven, in Sharra, without courage to die…?
Gabriel was riding at the head of the Guards, and in the small detachment I noticed he had brought both his sons; the slender, dark, gray-eyed Rafael, like a younger, darker Regis, and sturdy young Gabriel, whose reddish hair made me think of my father. I supposed that sooner or later I would have to adopt one of them as my Heir, since I would father no more sons—
I heard Regis speaking and realized I had drifted very far away.
“Do you know if Marius had a son, Lew?”
“Why, no,” I said. “If he did, he never told me—” But there had been so many things he had never had any time to tell me. He had not been a boy, though Lerrys had called him so; when he died he was twenty, and at that age I had been three years at Arilinn, three years as cadet and officer in the Guard, had sold myself into slavery and fire in Sharra. “I suppose it’s possible. Why?”
“I’m not sure,” Regis said. “But my foster-son, Mikhail— Javanne’s son—told me that his brother Gabriel said something about a rumor going round among the Guards, just before Council. Everybody knew, of course, that the Alton Domain was to be declared forfeit, and—forgive me, Lew— that they wouldn’t hear of Kennard’s younger son taking it, because of his Terran education. But that the Council, or somebody, had found an Alton child, and they were going to declare it Head of the Domain, under Hastur Regency. Something of that sort. You know what sort of rumors get around in the cadet corps; but this seemed more persistent than most.”
I shook my head. “I suppose it’s not impossible Marius could have fathered a son. Or, for that matter, that my father might have left a bastard or two; he didn’t tell me everything about his life. Though, I should think, I would have known—”
“It’s possible that someone might have had his child, from a casual love affair, and not told anyone till he was gone,” Regis said, and I caught the unspoken part of that, that there were women enough who would enjoy the status of bearing a laran child to Comyn, he should know—