“I was born in these mountains; I’ve traveled in worse weather than this.”

“We must be gone, then, before the guards wake. What did you give them?”

She told me and I shook my head. “No good. They’ll wake within the hour. But maybe I can do better now.” I touched the matrix. “Let’s go.” Hastily I gathered my things together. She had dressed warmly, I saw, heavy boots, a long riding-skirt. I looked out the windows. It was nightfall, but by some god’s mercy it was not snowing.

In the dim hallway two figures sprawled in sodden, snoring sleep. I bent and listened to their breathing. Marjorie gasped, “Don’t kill them, Lew. They’ve done you no harm!”

I wasn’t so sure. My ribs still ached from the weight of somebody’s boots. “I can do better than killing them,” I said, cradling the matrix between my palms. Swiftly, incisively, I drew into the minds of the drugged men. Sleep,I commanded, sleep long and well, sleep till the rising sun wakes you. Marjorie never came here, you drank no wine, drugged or wholesome.

The poor devils would have to answer to Beltran for sleeping at their post. But I’d done what I could.

I tiptoed down the corridor, Marjorie hugging the wall behind me. Outside the great guest suite were two more drugged guards; Marjorie had been thorough. I stooped over them, sent them, too, more deeply into their dreams.

My hands are strong. I made shorter work of the bolts than Marjorie had done. Briefly I wondered at the kind of hospitality that puts a bolt on the outside of a guest room door for any contingency. As I stepped inside, Danilo quickly stepped between me and Regis. Then he recognized me and fell back.

Regis said, “I thought they’d killed you—” His eyes fell on my face. “It looks as if they’d tried! How did you get out?”

“Never mind,” I said. “Get on your riding-things, unless you love Aldaran’s hospitality too well to leave it!”

Regis said, “They came and took away my sword, and Danilo’s dagger.” For some reason the loss of the dagger seemed to grieve him most. I had no time to wonder why. I went and hauled at the senseless guardsmen’s sword-belts, gave one to Regis, belted the other around my own waist. It was too long for me, but better than nothing. I gave the daggers to Marjorie and Danilo. “I have repaid my kinsman’s theft,” I said, “now let’s get out of here.”

“Where shall we go?”

I had made my decision swiftly, “I’ll take Marjorie to Arilinn,” I said. “You two just get away as fast and far as you can, before all hell breaks loose.”

Regis nodded. “We’ll take the straight road to Thendara, and get the word to Comyn.”

Danilo said, “Shouldn’t we all stay together?”

“No, Dani. One of us may get through if the others are recaptured, and the Comyn must be warned, whatever happens. There is an out-of-control, unmonitored matrix being used here. Tell them that, if I cannot!” Then I hesitated. “Regis, don’t take the straight road! It’s suicide! It’s the first place they’ll look!”

“Then maybe I can draw pursuit away from you,” he said. “Anyway, it’s you and Marjorie they’ll be after. Danilo and I are nothing to them.”

I wasn’t so sure. Then I saw what I could not mistake. I said, “No. We cannot separate while I send you on the route of danger. You are ill.” Threshold sickness, I finally realized. “I cannot send the heir to Hastur into such danger!”

“Lew, we mustseparate.” He looked straight up into my eyes. “Someone mustget through to warn the Comyn.”

What he said was true and I knew it. “Can you endure the journey?” I asked.

Danilo said, “I’ll look after him, and anyway he’s better off on the road than in Beltran’s hands, especially once you’ve escaped.” This was true also and I knew it. Danilo was quickly separating the contents of Regis’ saddlebags, discarding nearly everything. “We’ve got to travel light. There’s food here from Regis’ journey north … ” He quickly divided it, rolling meat and fruit, hard bread, into two small parcels. He handed the larger one to me and said, “You’ll be on the back roads, further away from villages.”

I stuffed it into the inside pocket of my riding cloak and looked at Marjorie. “Can we get out unseen?”

“That’s easy enough, word won’t have reached the stables. We’ll get horses, too.”

Marjorie led us out a small side door near the stables. Most of the stablemen were sleeping; she roused one old man who knew her as Kermiac’s ward. It was eccentric, perhaps, for her to set forth at nightfall with some of Beltran’s honored guests, but it wasn’t for an old horse-keeper to question. Most of them had seen me with her and had heard the castle gossip that a marriage was being arranged. If he had heard of the quarrel, this would have accounted for it in his mind, that Marjorie and I had run away to marry against Beltran’s will. I’m sure this accounted for the looks of sympathy the old groom gave us. He found mounts for us all. I thought tardily of the escort from Comyn, who had come here with me.

I could order them to go with Regis and Danilo, protect them. But that would make a stir. Marjorie said softly, “If they don’t know where you’ve gone, they cannot be made to tell,” and that decided me.

If we rode hard till morning, and Beltran’s guards slept as I had insured they would, we might be beyond pursuit. We led our horses toward the gates; the groom let us out. I lifted Marjorie to her saddle, readied myself to mount. She looked back with a faint sadness but, seeing me watching, she smiled bravely and turned her face to the road.

I turned to Regis, holding him for a moment in a kinsman’s embrace. Would I ever see him again? I thought I had turned my back on Comyn, yet the tie was stronger than I knew. I had thought him a child, easily flattered, easily swayed. No. Less so than I was myself. I told myself firmly not to be morbid, and kissed him on the cheek, letting him go. “The Gods ride with you, bredu,” I said, turning away. His hand clung to my arm for a moment, and in a split second I saw, for the last time, the frightened child I had taken into the fire-lines; he remembered, too, but the very memory of conquered fear strengthened us both. Still, I could not forget that he had been placed in my charge. I said hesitantly, “I am not sure … I do not like letting you take the road of most danger, Regis.”

He gripped my forearms with both hands and looked straight into my eyes. He said fiercely, “Lew, you too are the heir to your Domain! And I have an heir, you don’t! If it comes to that, better me than you!” I was shocked speechless by the words. Yet they were true. My father was old and ill, Marius, so far as we knew, was without laran.

I was the last male Alton. And it had taken Regis to remind me!

This was a man, a Hastur. I bowed my head in acquiescence, knowing we stood at that moment before something older, more powerful than either of us. Regis drew a long breath, let go of my hands, and said, “We’ll meet in Thendara, if the Gods will it, cousin.”

I knew my voice was shaking. I said, “Take care of him, Dani.”

He answered, “With my life, DomLewis,” as they swung into their saddles. Without a backward glance, Regis rode away down the path, Danilo a pace behind him.

I mounted, taking the opposite fork of the road, Marjorie at my side. I thanked all the gods I had ever heard of, and all the rest I hadn’t, for the time I had spent with maps on my northward journey. It was a long way to Arilinn, through some of the worst country on Darkover, and I wondered if Marjorie could endure it.

Overhead two of the moons swung, violet-blue, green-blue, shedding soft light on the snow-clad hills. We rode for hours in that soft night light. I was wholly aware of Marjorie: her grief and regret at leaving her childhood home, the desperation which had driven her to this. She must never regret it! I pledged my own life she should not regret.