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Danilo said hoarsely, "You? Like Dyan? Never!"

Regis fought to steady his own voice, but he was aware of the energy currents now. The steady pulsingwhich had eased and cleared his perceptions was beginning to back up, eddy and move unevenly. Hesaid, fighting for control, "Not in any way that ... that you have to fear. I swear it. But it's true. Do youhate me, then, or despise me for it?"

Danilo's voice was rough. "Don't you think I can tell the difference? I will not speak your name in thesame breath-"

"I am very sorry to disillusion you, Dani," Regis said very quietly, "but it would be worse to lie to you

now. That's what went wrong before. I think it was trying so hard to ... to

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keep it from you, to keep it from myself, even, that has been making me so sick. I knew about your fears; you have good reason for them. I tried very hard to keep you from knowing: I almost died rather than let you think of me like Dyan. I know you are a cristoforo, and I know your customs are different."

He should know, after three years in one of their monasteries. And now Regis knew what cut off hislaran: the two things coming together, the emotional response, wakening that time with Lew, and thetelepathic awareness, laran. And for three years, the years when they should have been wakening andstrengthening, every time he had felt any kind of emotional or physical impulse, he had cut it off again; andevery time there was the slightest, faintest telepathic response, be had smothered it. To keep fromrousing, again, all the longing and pain and memory. . . .

Saint-Valentine-of-the-Snows, saint or no, had nearly destroyed Regis. Perhaps, if he had been lessobedient, less scrupulous ...

He said, "Just the same, I must speak the truth to you, Dani. I am sorry if it hurts you, but I cannot hurtmyself again by lying, to you or myself. I am like Dyan. Now, at least. I will not do what he has done, but I feel as he felt, and I think I must have known it for a long time. If you cannot accept this, you need notcall me lord or even friend, but please believe I did not know it myself."

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"But I know youVe been honest with me," Danilo gasped. "7 tried to -keep it from you-I was so ashamed-I wanted to die for you, it would have been easier. Don't you think I can tell the difference?" he demanded. Tears were streaming down his face. "Like Dyan? You? Dyan, who cared nothing for me, who found his pleasure in tormenting me and drank in my fear and loathing as his own joy-" He drew a deep, gasping breath, as if there were not enough air anywhere to breathe. "And you. You've gone on like this, day after day, torturing yourself, letting yourself come almost to the edge of death, just to keep from frightening me-do you think I am afraid of you? Of anything you could say or ... or do?" The lines of light around him were blazing now, and Regis wondered if Danilo, in the surge of emotion blurring them both, really knew what he was saying.

He stretched both hands to Danilo and said, very gently, "Part of the sickness, I think, was trying to hidefrom each

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other. We've come close to destroying each other because of h. It's simpler than that. We don't have to talk about it and try to find words. Dani-bredu-will you speak to me, now, in the way we cannot misunderstand?"

Danilo hesitated for a moment and Regis, frightened with the old agonizing fear of a rebuff, felt as if hecould not breathe. Then, although Regis could feel the last aching instant of fear, reluctance, shame as if itwere in himself, Danilo reached out his hands and laid them, palm to palm, guided by a sure instinct,against Regis* own hands. He said, "I will, bredu."

The touch was that small but definite electric shock. Regis felt the energy pulses blazing up in him like livelightning for an instant. He felt the current, then, running through them both, from Danilo into him, into hiswhole body-the centers in the head, the base of the throat, beneath the heart, down deep inside his wholebody-and back again through Danilo. The muddied, swirling eddies in the currents began to clear, to runlike a smooth pulse, a swift current. For the first time in months, it seemed, he could see clearly, withoutthe crawling sickness and dizziness, as the energy channels began to flow in a straightforward circuit. Fora moment this shared life energy was all either of them could feel and, under the relief of it, Regis drewwhat seemed his first clear breath in a long time.

Then, very slowly, his thoughts began to merge with Danilo's. Clear, together, as if they were a singlemind, a single being, joined in an ineffable warmth and closeness.

This was the real need. To reach out to someone, this way, to feel this togetherness, this blending. Livingwith your skin off. This ty what laran is.

In the peace and comfort of that magical blending, Regis was still aware of the tension and clawing needin his body, but that was less important But why should either of us be afraid of that now?

This, Regis knew, was what had twisted his vital forces into knots, blockading the vital energy flows untilhe was near death. Sexuality was only part of it; the real trouble was the unwillingness to face andacknowledge what was within him. He knew without words that the clearing of these channels had freedhim to be what he was, and what he would be.

Some day he would know the trick of directing those currents without making them flow through hisbody. But

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now this is what he needed, and only someone who could accept him entirely, all of him, mind and body and emotions, could have given it to him. And it was a closer brotherhood than blood. Living with your skin off.

And suddenly be knew that he need not go to a tower. What he had learned now was a simpler way ofwhat he would have been taught there. He knew he could use laran now, any way he needed to. Hecould use his matrix without getting sick again, he could reach anyone he needed to reach, send themessage that had to be sent.

Chapter TWENTY-TWO

(Lew Alton9s narrative)

For the ninth or tenth time in an hour I tiptoed to the door, unfastened the leather latch and peered out. The outside world was nothing but swirling, murky grayness. I backed away from it, wiping snow frommy eyes, then saw in the dim light that Marjorie was awake. She sat up and wiped the rest of the snowfrom my face with her silk kerchief.

"It's early in the season for so heavy a storm."

"We have a saying in the hills, darling. Put no faith in a drunkard's prophecy, another man's dog, or the

weather at any season."

"Just the same," she said, struggling to put my own thoughts into words, "I know these mountains. There's something hi this storm that frightens me. The wind doesn't rage as it should. The snow is too wet for this season. It's -wrong somehow. Storms, yes. But not like this."

"Wrong or right, I only wish it would stop.** But for the moment we were helpless against it. We might as well enjoy what small good there was in being snowbound together. I buried my face in her breast; she said, laughing, "You are not at all sorry to be here with me.'*

"I would rather be with you at Arilinn," I said. "We would have a finer bridal chamber."

She put her arms around me. It was so dark we could not see one another's faces, but we needed nolight. She whispered, "I am happy with you wherever we are."

We were exaggeratedly gentle with one another now. I hoped a time might come, some day, when wecould come into one another's arms without fear. I knew I would never forget, not while I lived, thatterrifying madness that had gripped us both, nor those dreadful hours, after Marjorie bad cried herselfinto a stunned, exhausted sleep, while I lay rest-

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less, aching with the fear she might never trust or love me again.

That fear had vanished a few hours later, when she opened her eyes, still dark and bruised hi hertear-stained face, and impulsively reached for me, with a caress that healed my fears. But one fearremained: could it seize us again? Could anyone, ever, be sane, after the touch of Sharra?

But for now we were without fear. Later Marjorie slept; I hoped this prolonged rest would help herrecover her strength after long traveling. I moved restlessly away, peering into the storm again. Later, Iknew, I must brave the outdoors to give the last of our gram and fodder to the horses.

There was something very wrong with the storm. It made me think of Thyra's trick with the waterfall.

No, that was foolish. No sane person would meddle with the weather for some private end.

But I had said it myself: Could anyone be sane, after the touch of Sharra?

I dared not even look into my matrix, check what, if anything, was behind the undiminished strangenessof the storm. While Sharra was out and raging, seeking to draw us back, my matrix was useless-worsethan useless, dangerous, deadly.

I fed the horses, came back inside to find Marjorie still sleeping and knelt to kindle a fire with a little ofour remaining wood supply. Food was running low, but a few days of fasting would not hurt us. Worsewas the shortage of fodder for the horses. As I put some grain to cook for porridge, I wondered if I hadyet made Marjorie pregnant I hoped so, of course, then caught myself with a breath of consternation. Evanda and Avarra, not yet, not yet! This journey was hard enough on her already. I felt torn,ambivalent. With a deep instinct I hoped she was already bearing my child, yet I was afraid of what Imost desired.

I knew what to do, of course. Celibacy is impossible in the tower circles, except for the Keepers, and ittakes an unimaginable toll of them. Yet pregnancy is dangerous for the women working in the relays, andwe cannot risk interruption of their term. I suspected Marjorie would be shocked and indignant if I triedto protect her this way. I would not have had her feel otherwise. But what were we to do? At least weshould talk about it, honestly and openly. It would have to be her own choice, either way.

Behind me Marjorie stirred restlessly in her sleep, cried out "No! No! Thyra, no-" and sat bolt upright,holding her bands to her head as if in wild terror. I ran to her. She was sobbing with fright, but when I gother fully awake she could not tell me what she had seen or dreamed.

Was Thyra doing this to her? I didn't doubt she was capa-able of it, and now I had no faith in herscruples. Nor in Kad-arin's. I braced myself against the hurt of that. We had been friends. What hadchanged them?

Sharra? If the fires of Sharra could break through the discipline of years at Arilinn, what would it do to awild tele-path without it?

Marjorie said, a little wistfully, "You were a little in love with Thyra, weren't you?"

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"I desired her," I said quietly, facing it. That kind of thing is unavoidable in a close circle of that sort. It might have happened with any woman who could reach my mind. But she did not want it; she tried to fight against it. I, at least, knew it could happen. Thyra was trying very hard not to be aware of it."

How much had that battle with herself damaged and disrupted her? Had I failed Thyra, too? I shouldhave tried harder to help her confront it, face it hi full awareness. I should have made us all-all-be honestwith one another, as my training demanded, especially when I saw where our undisciplined emotionswere leading us-to rage and violence and hate.

We could never have controlled Sharra. But if I had known sooner what was happening among us all, Imight have seen the way we were being warped, distorted.

I had failed them all, my kinsmen, my friends, by loving them too much, not wanting to hurt them withwhat they were.

The experiment, noble as Beltran's dream had been, lay in ruins. Now, whatever the cost, the Sharramatrix must be monitored, then destroyed. But again, what of those who had been sealed to Sharra?

The snow continued to fall all that day and night, and was still falling when we woke the next morning,drifting high around the stone buildings. I felt we should try to pass on, nevertheless, but knew it wasinsanity. The horses could never force their way through those drifts. Yet if we were

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trapped here much longer, without food for them, they would not be able to travel.

It must have been the next afternoon-events of that time are blurred in my mind-when I roused fromsleep to hear Marjorie cry out in fear. The door burst inward and Kadarin stood in the doorway, half adozen of Beltran's guards crowding behind him.

I snatched up my sword but within seconds I was hopelessly outmatched, and with a horrible sense ofinfinite repetition, stood struggling, helplessly pinioned between the guards. Marjorie had drawn back intoa corner. As Kadarin went toward her I told myself that if he handled her roughly I would kill him, but heonly lifted her gently to her feet and draped his own cloak over her shoulders. He said, "Foolish child,didn't you know we couldn't let you go like that?" He thrust her into the arms of two of the guards andsaid, "Take her outside. Don't hurt her, treat her gently, but don't let her go or I'll have your heads!"