Light broke in the troubled face. “I bless you for coming and I beg you to pardon my rough words, Lord Regis. I am no courtier. But I am grateful.”

“And loyal to your son,” Regis said. “Have no doubt, DomFelix, he is worthy of it.”

“Will you not honor my house, Lord Regis?” This time the offer was heartfelt, and Regis smiled. “I regret that I cannot, sir, I am expected elsewhere. Danilo has shown me your hospitality; you grow the finest apples I have tasted in a long time. And I give you my word that one day it shall be my pleasure to show honor to the father of my friend. Meanwhile, I beg you to be reconciled to your son.”

“You may be sure of it, Lord Regis.” He stood staring after Regis as the boy mounted and rode away, and Regis could sense his confusion and gratitude. As he rode slowly down the hill to rejoin his bodyguard, he realized what he had, in substance, pledged himself to do: to restore Danilo’s good name and make certain that Dyan could not again misuse power this way. What it meant was that he, who had once sworn to renounce the Comyn, now had to reform it from inside out, single-handedly, before he could enjoy his own freedom.

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Chapter TWELVE

(Lew Alton’s narrative)

The hills rise beyond the Kadarin, leading away into the mountains, into the unknown country where the law of the Comyn does not run. In my present state, as soon as I had forded the Kadarin I felt that a weight had been lifted from my shoulders.

In this part of the world, five days’ ride north of Thendara, my safe-conducts meant nothing. We slept at night in tents, with a watch set. It was a barren country, long deserted. Only perhaps three or four times in a day’s ride did we see some small village, half a dozen poor houses clustered in a clearing, or some small-holding where a hardy farmer wrested a bare living from the stony and perpendicular forest. There were so few travelers here that the children came out to watch us as we passed.

The roads got worse and worse as we went further into the hills, degenerating at times into mere goat-tracks and trails. There are not many good roads on Darkover. My father, who lived on Terra for many years, has told me about the good roads there, but added that there was no way to bring that system here. For roads you needed slave labor or immense numbers of men willing to work for the barest subsistence, or else heavy machinery. And there have never been slaves on Darkover, not even slaves to machinery.

It was, I thought, small wonder that the Terrans were reluctant to move their spaceport into these hills again.

I was the more surprised when, on the ninth day of traveling, we came on to a wide road, well-surfaced and capable of handling wheeled carts and several men riding abreast. My father had also told me that when he last visited the hills near Aldaran, Caer Donn had been little more than a substantial village. Reports had reached him that it was now a good-sized city. But this did not diminish my astonishment when, coming to the top of one of the higher hills, we saw it spread out below us in the valley and along the lower slopes of the next mountain.

It was a clear day, and we could see a long distance. Deep in the lowest part of the valley, where the ground was most even, there was a great fenced-in area, abnormally smooth-surfaced, and even from here I could see the runways and the landing strips. This, I thought, must be the old Terran spaceport, now converted to a landing field for their aircraft and the small rockets which brought messages from Thendara and Port Chicago. There was a similar small landing field near Arilinn. Beyond the airfield lay the city, and as my escort drew to a halt behind me, I heard the men murmuring about it.

“There was no city here when I was a lad! How could it grow so fast?”

“It’s like the city which grew up overnight in the old fairytale!”

I told them a little of what Father had said, about prefabricated construction. Such cities were not built to stand for ages, but could be quickly constructed. They scowled skeptically and one of them said, “I’d hate to be rude about the Commander, sir, but he must have been telling you fairy tales. Even on Terra human hands can’t build so quick.”

I laughed. “He also told me of a hot planet where the natives did not believe there was such a thing as snow, and accused him of tale-telling when he spoke of mountains which bore ice all year.”

Another pointed. “Castle Aldaran?”

There was nothing else it could have been, unless we were unimaginably astray: an ancient keep, a fortress of craggy weathered stone. This was the stronghold of the renegade Domain, exiled centuries ago from Comyn—no man alive now knew why. Yet they were the ancient Seventh Domain, of the ancient kin of Hastur and Cassilda.

I felt curiously mingled eagerness and reluctance, as if taking some irrevocable step. Once again the curiously unfocused time-sense of the Altons thrust fingers of dread at me. What was waiting for me in that old stone fortress lying at the far end of the valley of Caer Donn?

With a scowl I brought myself back to the present. It needed no great precognition to sense that in a completely strange part of the world I might meet strangers and that some of them would have a lasting effect on my life. I told myself that crossing that valley, stepping through the gates of Castle Aldaran, was notsome great and irrevocable division in my life which would cut me off from my past and all my kindred. I was here at my father’s bidding, an obedient son, disloyal only in thought and will.

I struggled to get myself back in focus, “Well, we might as well try to reach it while we still have some daylight,” I said, and started down the excellent road.

The ride across Caer Donn was in a strange way dreamlike. I had chosen to travel simply, without the complicated escort of an ambassador, treating this as the family visit it purported to be, and I attracted no particular attention. In a way the city was like myself, I thought, outwardly all Darkovan, but with a subliminal difference somewhere, something that did not quite belong. For all these years I had been content to accept myself as Darkovan; now, looking at the old Terran port as I had never looked at the familiar one at Thendara, I thought that this too was my heritage … if I had courage to take it

I was in a curious mood, feeling a trifle fey, as if, without knowing what shape or form it would take, I could smell a wind that bore my fate.

There were guards at the gates of Aldaran, mountain men, and for the first time I gave my full name, not the one I bore as my father’s nedestroheir, but the name given before either father or mother had cause to suspect anyone could doubt my legitimacy. “I am Lewis-Kennard Lanart-Montray Alton y Aldaran, son of Kennard, Lord Alton, and Elaine Montray-Aldaran. I have come as envoy of my father, and I ask a kinsman’s welcome of Kermiac, Lord Aldaran.”

The guards bowed and one of them, some kind of majordomo or steward, said, “Enter, dom, you are welcome and you honor the house of Aldaran. In his name I extend you welcome, until you hear it from his own lips.” My escort was taken away to be housed elsewhere while I was led to a spacious room high in one of the far wings of the castle; my saddle bags were brought and servants sent to me when they found I traveled with no valet. In general they established me in luxury. After a while the steward returned.

“My lord, Kermiac of Aldaran is at dinner and asks, if you are not too weary from travel, that you join him in the hall. If you are trail-wearied, he bids you dine here and rest well, but he bade me say he was eager to welcome his sister’s grandson.”