“If he’s unfit, sir—” and Gabriel looked troubled—“it’ll be apparent soon enough.”

Javanne said shrilly, “I thought they had deposed him as Kennard’s successor after the Sharra rebellion. And now both he and his brother are still tied up with Sharra—”

Regis said, “And so am I, sister; or weren’t you listening?”

She raised her eyes to him and said, disbelieving, “You?”

Regis reached, with hesitant fingers, for his matrix; fumbled at taking it from its silk wrapping. He remembered that Javanne had, years ago, taught him to use it, and she remembered too, for she raised her angry eyes and suddenly softened, and smiled at him. There was the old image in her mind, as if the girl she had been— herself motherless, trying to mother her motherless baby brother— had bent over him as she had so often done when he was small, swung him up into her arms—For a moment the hard-faced woman, the mother of grown sons, was gone, and she was the gentle and loving sister he had once known.

Regis said softly, “I am sorry, breda, but things don’t go away because you are afraid of them. I didn’t want you to have to see this.” He sighed and let the blue crystal fall into his cupped hand.

Raging, flaming in his mind, the form of fire…a great tossing shape, a woman, tall, bathed in flame, her hair rising like restless fires, her arms shackled in golden chains… Sharra!

When he had seen it six years ago at the height of the Sharra rebellion, his laranhad been newly waked; he had been, moreover, half dead with threshold sickness, and Sharra had been only another of the horrors of that time. When he had seen it briefly in Marius’s house, he had been too shocked to notice. Now something cold took him by the throat; his flesh crawled on his bones, every hair on his body rose slowly upright, beginning with his forearms, slowly moving over all his body. Regis knew, without knowing how he knew, that he looked upon a very ancient enemy of his race and his caste, and something in his body, cell-deep, bone-deep, knew and recognized it. Nausea crawled through his body and he felt the sour taste of terror in his mouth.

Confused, he thought, but Sharra was used and chained by the forge-folk, surely I am simply remembering the destruction of Sharra loosed, a city rising in flame…it is no worse than a forest fire—but he knew this was something worse, something he could not understand, something that fought to draw him into itself… recognition, fear, a fascination almost sexual in its import…

“Aaahh—” It was a half-drawn breath of horror; he heard, saw, feltJavanne’s mind, her terror reaching out, entangled. She clutched at the matrix under her own dress as if it had burned her, and Regis, with a mighty effort, wrenched his mind and his eyes from the Form of Fire blazing from his matrix. But Javanne clung, in terror and fascination…

And something in Regis, long dormant, unguessed, seemed to uncoil within him; as a skilled swordsman takes the hilt in his hand, without knowing what moves he will make, or which strokes he will answer, knowing only that he can match his opponent, he felt that strangeness rise, take over what he did next. He reached outinto the depths of the fire, and delicately picked Javanne’s mind loose, focusing so tightly that he did not even touch the Form of Fire… as if she were a puppet, and the strings had been cut, she slumped back fainting in her chair, and Gabriel caught her scowling.

“What did you do?” he demanded, “What have you done to her?”

Javanne, half-conscious, was blinking. Regis, with careful deliberation, wrapped up his matrix. He said, “It is dangerous to you too, Javanne. Don’t come near it again.”

Danvari Hastur had been staring, bewildered, as his grandson and granddaughter stared in terror, paralyzed, then, as they withdrew. Regis remembered, wearily, that his grandfather had little laran. Regis himself did not understand what he had done, only knew he was shaking down deep in the bones, exhausted, as weary as if he had been on the fire-lines for three days and three nights. Without knowing he was doing it, he reached for a plateful of hot rolls, smeared honey thickly on one and gobbled it down, feeling the sugar restoring him.

“It was Sharra,” Javanne said in a whisper. “But what did you do?”

And Regis could only mumble, shocked, “I haven’t the faintest idea.”

CHAPTER FOUR

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Lew Alton’s narrative

I’ve never been sure how I got out of the Crystal Chamber. I have the impression that Jeff half-carried me, when the Council broke up in discord, but the next thing I remember clearly, I was in the open air, and Marius was with me, and Jeff. I pulled myself upright.

“Where are we going?”

“Home,” said Marius, “The Alton townhouse; I didn’t think you’d care for the Alton apartments, and I’ve never been there—not since Father left. I’ve been living here with Andres and a housekeeper or two.”

I couldn’t remember that I’d been to the town house since I was a very young child. It was growing dark; thin cold rain stung my face, clearing my mind, but fragments of isolated thought jangled and clamored from the passersby, and the old insistent beat:

… last command— return, fight for your brother’s rights… Would I never be free of that? Impatiently I struggled to get control as we came across the open square; but I seemed to see it, not as it was, dark and quiet, with a single light somewhere at the back, a servant’s night-light; but I saw it through someone else’s eyes, alive with light and warmth spilling down from open doors and brilliant windows, companionship and love and past happiness… I realized from Jeff’s arm around my shoulders that he was seeing it as it had been, and moved away. I remembered that he had been married, and that his wife had died long since. He, too, had lost a loved one—

But Marius was up the steps, calling out in excitement as if he were younger than I remembered him.

“Andres! Andres!” and a moment later the old coridomfrom Armida, friend, tutor, foster-father, was staring at me in astonishment and welcome.

“Young Lew! I—” he stopped, in shock and sorrow, as he saw my scarred face, the missing hand. He swallowed, then said gruffly, “I’m glad you’re here.” He came and took my cloak, managing to give my shoulder an awkward pat of affection and grief. I suppose Marius had sent word about father; mercifully, he asked no questions, just said “I’ve told the housekeeper to get a room ready for you. You too, sir?” he asked Jeff, who shook his head.

“Thank you, but I am expected elsewhere—I am here as Lord Ardais’s guest, and I don’t think Lew is in any shape for any long family conferences tonight.” He turned to me and said, “Do you mind?” and held his hand lightly over my forehead in the monitor’s touch, the fingers at least three inches away, running his hand down over my head, all along my body. The touch was so familiar, so reminiscent of the years at Arilinn—the only place I could remember where I had been wholly happy, wholly at peace—that I felt my eyes fill with tears.

That was all I wanted— to go back to Arilinn. And it was forever too late for that. With the hells in my brain that would not bear looking into, with the matrix tainted by Sharra… no, they would not have me in a Tower now.

Jeff’s hand was solid under my arm; he shoved me down in a seat. Through the remnant of the drugs which had destroyed my control, I felt his solicitude, Andres’s shock at my condition, and turned to face them, clenching my hand, aware of phantom pain as by reflex I tried to clench the missing hand too; wanting to scream out at them in rage, and realizing that they were all troubled for me, worrying about me, sharing my pain and distress.