Hastur Lord (6 page)

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,
Mestra
Lawton.”

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
reis
in 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.

Felix opened his eyes and looked directly at Regis. “Where am I?” he asked in an exhausted, thready voice. “What happened?”

Regis almost laughed aloud. “We’ll explain later. For now, just keep holding on to that stone. Don’t let anyone except your Keeper handle it.”

Especially not your mother,
he added silently. It was a miracle the boy had survived. Tiphani must not have known what the pouch contained and saw it only as a barbaric talisman.

With a physician’s deft touch, Jason taped the stone to Felix’s hand. It only took a few moments, but when it was done, the boy drifted into a sound, natural sleep.

Regis felt as if he had just raced from the Wall Around the World to the Dry Towns. Wearily, he said to Jason, “He should be nursed by someone with
laran
training. I don’t know of anyone who’s studied in a Tower who is in Thendara at the moment. I believe that some of the Bridge Society Renunciates have skill in these matters.”

Jason nodded. “Yes, we’re fortunate enough to have one or two with that training.”

“They will do for the moment,” Regis said. “It would be better if we had a Keeper to see to him . . .” Out of the corner of his vision, he caught the fleeting spark behind Danilo’s eyes, and knew that his
bredhyu
was also thinking of Linnea.

“I very much suspect that because the Renunciate healer is unconnected with me,
Mestra
Lawton will regard her with favor,” Regis said in an attempt to divert the awkward moment. “Can she attend him here?”

“I see no reason why not,” Jason said. The three men had reached the doorway. “I won’t release Felix until he’s recovered from the convulsions. You look exhausted, Regis. I’m sorry to have dragged you out of bed at this hour. Danilo, take him home. I’ll speak with the Lawtons.”

Jason bowed to Regis, the slight inclination of his body that betokened personal respect rather than the responsibilities of caste. Regis promised to check the boy’s progress when he could.

D
uring the following tenday, Thendara enjoyed an unseasonably rapid transition to spring, as if winter had suddenly opened its fist. Throughout the Lowlands, the bitter edge of winter softened.

Regis felt the turning toward longer days as a rising hope in his own spirit. Sometimes he paused in the middle of the street while hurrying from one conference or another, or he simply stood looking over the ancient city. All things came in their own season, he reminded himself.

Regis had used Lew’s warning as best he could to prepare for the choice that would soon be presented to Darkover. Although the vote in the Empire Senate was not yet official, rumors spread throughout the Terran Zone, spilling over into the city. No formal declaration had yet been made, but that was only a matter of time.

Division on the subject of Federation membership developed much as Regis had expected. His grandfather was not the only one who wanted Darkover to cut off ties with the
Terranan.
Conservatives like Ruyven Di Asturien and Kyril Eldrin immediately made alliances. They saw the reorganization of the Federation as an opportunity to sever all off-world relations.

On the other side of the question were Valdir Ridenow, Regent of Serrais, the Aldarans, the Pan Darkovan League, and many citizens of Thendara. The Terrans stationed on Darkover maintained a carefully neutral public face, but Regis needed no
laran
to tell they were worried.

On one of the visits Regis made to check on Felix Lawton’s progress, Dan made him an unexpected offer of assistance.

“This is completely unofficial, you understand,” Dan said privately, behind closed doors. “As Legate, I cannot be seen to take sides in the debate. Only the citizens of Darkover may determine their course.”

They were alone in Dan Lawton’s private office, with Danilo on guard beside the door. Regis remembered again that Dan had a legitimate stake in the debate, for his parentage was part Comyn. The Domains accepted the notion of
citizenship
reluctantly, for the term usually referred to legal rights, rather than the complex web of responsibilities that characterized Darkovan culture. Whatever
laran
Dan possessed was deeply buried and likely to remain so in his Terran role. Yet Regis sensed in the other man a passionate desire to protect the world of his birth.

It was, Regis reflected, not strictly true that Darkover would be allowed to choose without any Terran influence or hint of coercion. If the Terrans decided their own interests were threatened—if, for instance, a disturbance should take place at the spaceport or a Terran patroller should be threatened or injured—then those sympathetic to the Expansionists would seize the excuse to impose martial law. Such a thing had happened on other worlds, according to Lew Alton.

“I thank you,” Regis said carefully, “but there is nothing I need from you now.”

Dan nodded. “We still have time before a final decision. However, the prospect of full membership in the Federation may cause . . . unrest.”

Dan was saying, in the way he had juxtaposed the offer of help and the warning,
Keep your own people in order, and I will keep mine out of your affairs.

Revolted by the intricacies of political schemes, Regis changed the subject. “I’m glad your son is better. That, at least, is one area in which our two peoples can work cooperatively for our mutual benefit.”

Dan’s face relaxed into a smile. “Yes, between Dr. Allison’s medical expertise and the care of the Renunciate healer—Ferrika n’ha Margali—he is recovering. It will take time for his
laran
to stabilize, but his life is no longer in danger. Ferrika says that eventually he ought to go to a Tower for proper training.”

Regis had sensed the power of the boy’s
laran
but had not realized it was so strong. “Indeed? He has the makings of a matrix mechanic or technician?”

“She says . . .” Dan paused, wet his lips, “he could make a Keeper.”

Danilo and Regis exchanged startled glances, for both had been taught that only women could hold the demanding centripolar position in a matrix circle. Male Keepers were very rare. Regis had met only one, Jeff Kerwin, now Keeper at Arilinn Tower.

“Do you think it is possible,” Dan went on, “that he may have the Ardais Gift?” His Comyn heritage came through that Domain, through his Darkovan mother.

Regis turned thoughtful. “I don’t think so, but he could well have another talent. If he does, it must be trained and preserved. There are so few of us, and the old Gifts no longer breed true. I am, to my knowledge, the only living bearer of the Hastur Gift.” Again, his eyes sought Danilo’s.

Don’t rub it in.
Danilo looked away, once more the faithful paxman, his features a mask of disciplined vigilance.

Comprehension swept through Regis. He had been a fool not to realize that every time his grandfather pressured him to marry, to father heirs and provide for the succession of the Domain, Danvan also meant the necessity to continue the unique talent of the clan. From there, it was only a small step of logic to the requirement for Danilo to do the same. Catalyst telepathy was the rarest of all the known Gifts. Danilo had the ability to awaken even the most deeply buried latent
laran
in another individual.

Unlike Regis, Danilo had never been able to couple with women for the sole purpose of procreation. He was one of those telepaths for whom a deep mental and emotional closeness was essential to physical intimacy. His heart was focused on Regis, and they were bound not only by love but by the vows of
bredhin
and those of lord and paxman.