“Am I to come with you then?”
Callina said, still with that icy indifference, “I will not give this farce any of the trappings of a wedding, Linnie. Nor will I drag any of my kinsmen into it… why do you think I made sure Merryl was well out of the way?”
“Oh, Callina—” Linnell said, reaching for her, but she moved away, leaving Linnell with her arms outstretched, hurt and bewildered.
“Don’t pity me, Linnie,” she said tensely, “I—won’t have it.” I was sure that what she meant was, I can’t bear it.
I don’t know what I would have said or done at that moment, if she had turned to me; but she drew herself apart from us; her eyes brooded, blue ice like Ashara’s, past me into silence. Bitter and helpless, I watched her move away through the crowds in that dress that was a reminder of death, doom, shadows.
I should have guessed everything, then, when she left us without a word or a touch, silent and remote as Ashara’s self, making a lonely island of her tragedy and shutting us all away from her. I watched Beltran, at Hastur’s side, advance to greet her, and saw that she gave him only a formal bow and not an embrace; listened as the bracelets were locked on their wrists.
“Parted in flesh, may you never be so in spirit; may you be forever one,” Hastur said, and all over the room, wives reached for husbands, and lover for lover, to exchange the ritual kiss. Callina was Beltran’s consort, the marriage a legal fact, from the moment Hastur released her hand. I did not turn to see if Dio was near me. The truth of the matter is, I had, at that moment, forgotten her existence, I was so caught up into Callina’s anguish.
The next dance after a handfasting was always, by tradition, a dance for married or pledged couples. Callina, with the privilege of the bride, led Beltran onto the dance floor; but they moved with nothing touching but their fingertips. I saw Javanne and Gabriel move, smiling, onto the floor; the Regent bowed to an elderly dowager, one of Callina’s distant kinswomen, and they moved into the sedate measure.
“Regis,” Linnell said gaily, “are you going to disappoint every unwedded woman in the Domains again tonight?”
“Better disappoint them now than later, kinswoman,” said Regis, smiling. “And I notice you are not dancing—where is our royal cousin?”
“He is ill—someone gave him some punch which had more to it than he knew,” Linnell said, “and Merryl has taken him away, so I have neither kinsman nor lover to dance with me tonight—unless you would like to dance, Lew? You’re more my brother than Merryl ever was,” she added with a touch of annoyance.
“Forgive me, Linnie, I would rather not,” I said, and wondered if I was still a little drunk; I felt uneasy, almost nauseated. Was it only the general unease of a telepath when the crowds are surrounding him too closely?
“Look, even Dyan is dancing with the widow of the old arms-master,” Linnell said, “and Dio with Lerrys—look, isn’t he a marvelous dancer?” I followed her look, saw the brother and sister dancing, closely gathered in each other’s arms like lovers rather than sister and brother, and for a moment I wanted to storm across the floor in outrage, remind Lerrys that Dio was mine… but I felt unable to move. If I tried to dance surely I would fall down, but I had drunk only a very little of that same heavily spiked fruit drink.
Regis said, bowing to Linnell, “I will dance with you as Derik’s surrogate, if you wish for it, cousin. It seems I am Derik’s heir—may his reign be long,” he added, with a wry smile.
“No, I would rather not,” she said, a hand on his arm, “but you may stay and talk with me for this dance… Lew, do you know the man there in the harlequin costume? Who is the woman with him?”
For a moment I could not see the harlequin I had noticed before; then I saw him, dancing with a tall woman with dark-copper hair, wonderful thick curls that cascaded halfway down her back. The whirling movement of the dance suddenly turned them toward me, and—although the woman was masked—suddenly I knew her, knew them both, even behind the hideous harlequin mask.
Thyra! No mask could have concealed her from me… for a moment it seemed that the matrix at my throat burned as with Sharra’s very fire. I stood shocked, unable to move, watching my sworn enemy, and wondering with desperate unease what brought them here, into the very heart of Thendara, with a price on Kadarin’s head and the death sentence from Terran and Comyn at once! I gripped the dagger at my waist with my good hand, wishing I had not encumbered myself with the artificial one. Kadarin and Thyra, boldly dancing together here at the Comyn masked ball…
But now at the conclusion of this dance, all masks were coming off; I tore mine away, using the mechanical hand; the other was firmly gripped on my dagger. Did he think that I would not attack him here because it was in the middle of a ball?
And now I saw that Regis had recognized him too. I took a single step; Regis caught urgently at my arm.
“Steady, Lew,” he muttered. “It’s what he wants you to do, come after him without thinking—”
The matrix at my throat was suddenly alive with flame, and a voice whispered, called in my mind.
… I am here! I am here…all your rage, all the fury of frustrated lust, let it turn on them to serve me, burning, burning…
Sharra! The voice of Sharra, whispering like a frantic ghost in my mind, the fury of all my frustration, leaping up to betray me… Thyra’s eyes, burning into mine, the red flame of her hair seeming to blaze up around her! And suddenly it flared all around her, as Thyra seemed to grow taller, to rise and tower above us into the heights of the ballroom, as I saw Kadarin’s long fine hand, the hand of a chieri, flash and draw the sword, that sword—
It called to me. I had dragged it unwilling through half a Galaxy because I could not leave it behind, and now it summoned me, summoned me… half-aware, I slid my dagger back into its sheath; my place was at Kadarin’s side, lending strength to the Goddess, pouring all my own rage and terror and frustration through it… my hand went to the matrix at my throat. I saw some woman whose name I could not remember staring at me with widening blue eyes— I heard her whisper a name I no longer associated with myself, but she was nothing to me, and a young man with the face of a mortal enemy… Hastur, he was Hastur… the mortal enemy, the first to strike! I felt his hand gripping at my arm and thrust him away with uncanny strength, so that his knees buckled and he spread to the floor; and all this time that pattern of hate and fear, mingled love and loathing, beat in my mind…I took a step, then another, toward where the Goddess flamed above me.
I must return… return to Sharra, return to the immortal who rose in flame above me forever, burn myself in the purging fire… she was there, Marjorie, calling me from within the flames of Sharra, those compelling amber eyes, the cascade of red hair wildly tossing sparks and flame and the smell of burning, as I burned for her with lust and terror…
The one I knew to be my mortal enemy was gripping me now with both hands as I fought my way, step by step, through the cries of the yammering crowd, to where Sharra burned…
“No, damn it, Lew,” he gasped, “You’re not going, if I have to kill you first and give you a clean death…” and he struck at me with the dagger, tearing a line of blood across my good arm. The pain made me waver, come to myself a little, know what was happening.