Then she was dead.
Marjorie. Marius. Linnell.
Now Marja.
Lawton did not press us for details. He must have known we were all touching our last reserves of strength. I found myself sitting and asking questions as if anything could matter now. “Andres?”
“Dyan left him for dead, but he may pull through.”
It was savage comfort to know that Andres had defended her. like that. “Ashara?”
Dio stood up, her mouth, pinched tight. I think we had all forgotten she was there. “Regis! Keep them! I am going to the Tower!”
I cried, “What for?” but she was already gone.
Lawton said grimly, “The first thing is to have Dyan picked up. If he has the little girl—”
Kadarin broke in. “You can’t! There’s no way to take the Sharra matrix away from him now. I’ve had the thing in my own hands often enough to know! Dyan could get it away from Marius only because he didn’t know how to guard him-self. No man living—” Kadarin started upright. “Lawton! all of you! Bear witness! His life is mine, when, how and as I can kill him, fair fight or unfair, his life is—”
“Mine!” I cut through his words. “Marja was mine! And whoever kills him, owes me a life—”
“You pair of maniacs!” Lawton said, “let’s catch him first, before you start fighting for the privilege of killing him!”
With a gesture that was animal in its ferocity, Kadarin said, “If he frees Sharra, don’t trust me! I’m the masterseal, and I’ll be right in it!”
Regis turned to me. “Well, Lew, it will have to be you. You’ve touched Sharra, but you’re sealed to the Comyn too. If we could hold you in rapport from here, you could go into the Sharra matrix—”
I cracked, then. “No!” I shouted. “No!” They could all die before they’d force me into that; why should I care now if Sharra ravaged Darkover? What had I left to lose? I grabbed the pistol out of Rafe’s belt, and snapped off the safety. “I’ll blow out my own brains first!”
Regis’ hand caught mine in a bone-crushing grip. We struggled briefly, crazily, but he had two hands; the recoil of the gun knocked me back and the bullet fired harmlessly through the window, in a burst of shattering glass. Regis shook my cramped fingers from the butt.
“You’re insane!” he said. He tossed the pistol to Rafe. “Here. This was yours originally, wasn’t it? Take it. It’s been around a lot lately. One lunatic is enough!”
Lawton swore, kicking at the glass on the floor. “I ought to throw you all in the clink. Rafe, go get somebody to clean this mess up, and take Alton downstairs. He’s off his head again.”
I dragged to my feet, but I had to hold the chair. “I’m a prisoner?”
“Hell, no! But you walk out of here now, you’ll pass out on the sidewalk! Man, use your head! Go on down to the infirmary! We’ll let you know when we need you!”
Quite suddenly the rage dissolved, leaving me empty and numb. Kadarin unfolded his long legs and came to me. “Truce, Lew,” he said quietly. “Marja was mine, too. We can’t do much now. You’re worn out. Maybe later we can figure out some way to get me out of that hellish thing before Dyan burns us all to hell-and-gone.” His eyes met mine; there was no hate left in them. Mine, too, had burnt away. I stumbled and let myself lean wearily on his arm. “Truce,” I said.
So it was Kadarin who took me down to Medical and into the hospital wing. I sat down on the cot in the cubicle, my emotions burned out but my nerves jumping and my telepathic barriers nonexistent. I bent wearily to pull off my boots.
“Need any help?”
I asked him, straight, “You think Dyan will let Sharra loose?”
“I’m damn sure he’ll try.”
It felt unreal. For six years my main compulsion had been to kill Kadarin, I had pictured it to myself a thousand times, and here we were, talking, quietly and rationally and from the same side. It felt unpleasant, but somehow sensible. I supposed it was the Terran way of doing things.
“Want me to get you something from the Medic?”
“No.” I added, grudgingly, “No, thanks.”
Then I looked up, squarely at him. I knew he would never stoop to lie about it. “Bob, was it by your order that Marjorie was — forced into the Sharra fire, that last time? Was it your way of revenging yourself on me? When you knew—” I swallowed, “that it would kill her?”
“Why would I kill her — to revenge myself on you?” He flung the question at me with a passionate sincerity I could not doubt; the same agonized question, that had been tormenting me for six years.
“Lew, I knew Sharra as no living man has ever known. There was no danger, not for either of the girls, while I was in control. You know I loved Thyra, yet I managed to keep her safe.” His face was bitter, agonized. “There aren’t ten men alive who can determine the limits of safety for a woman they’ve had, but I did it for Thyra! Marjorie—”
His dark face was ravaged by such misery that I almost pitied him; his barriers were down too, and the violence of his grief was like a burning in me. He would never be free of that grief, that guilt. “Marjorie — Margie was just a child, I thought. She never told me! I swear I never knew you had been her lover 1 I swear it!”
I rolled over and buried my face, unable to endure it, but Kadarin went on his voice heavy with pain. “So she went into it — and you know what happened. Any woman would have died coming from the arms of a lover to the pole of such power, and I’ve hated you for that—”
His voice suddenly softened into deep compassion. “But it never occurred to me that you couldn’t know. Hell, you were just a kid yourself. A pair of babies, you and Marjorie, and I never even warned you. Zandru’s hells, Lew, talk about revenge, you had yours — !”
Abruptly he was calm; dead calm. He said without inflection, “I claimed your life once. I give it back to you.”
I looked up at him, equally numbed. He had claimed my life; a solemn obligation, irrevocable in Darkovan law, while we both lived. Had another killed me, he would have been legally obligated to track down and kill my murderer. But Darkovan law was collapsing around us. We stood in the smashing rubble. I did not know my own voice when I said, “I’ll take it from you.”
Gravely, unsmiling, we shook hands.
“Tell me this,” I said wearily. “Why was Thyra’s child mine?”
There was irony in his gaunt face. “I thought you’d have that all figured out. I hoped for a telepath son, with the
Alton Gift.”
Damned, insolent-He said evenly, “Thyra never forgave me. I was so pleased with Marja that she was jealous, she refused to have the child where I could see her—” Suddenly his face twisted again. “It will kill Thyra! I swore Marja should not be used as a pawn, and I couldn’t even keep her safe. Thyra has pretended so long to hate the child. Gods! Great Gods! Everything I love, everyone I love, I hurt or kill!” I flinched with the anguish of his despair. Abruptly he turned and went out, slamming the door so violently that the walls trembled.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
I must have slept.
I opened my eyes at last in the bare infirmary cubicle to see Callina kneeling beside me. Her soft eyes were filled with tears; she seized my hand, but did not speak. I wanted to catch her in my arms and crush her to me; but Kadarin’s words still held me, compelled with horror. For her very life, I dared not touch her.
But it would be harder than ever; I sensed, without knowing how, that some inner reserve in Callina was gone. There was no longer that chill, that conscious and wary aloofness.