Strengthen me, Dyan, for what I must do! He felt Dyan’s thoughts, surprise at the sudden contact, an emotion of which Dyan was not quite consciously aware… su servo. Dom, a veis ordenes emprézi… in the inflection with which he would have put himself at Regis’s orders, now and forever, in life and death at the disposal of a Hastur… once, on the fire-lines during his first year as an officer in the Guards, he had been sent with Dyan into the fire-lines when forest-fire raged in the Venza hills behind Thendara, and once he had looked up and found himself working at Dyan’s side, strained to the uttermost, shared effort in every nerve and muscle. It was very like being back to back, swords out, each guarding the other’s back like paxman and sworn lord… he felt Dyan’s strength backing his as he reached outblindly with his telepathic force—

GET BACK! It was a cry of warning, telepathic and not vocal, but everyone in the crowd experienced it, edged backward. The great heap of weapons began to glow, reddened, turned white-hot…

They vanished, vaporized; there was a great sickening stench for a moment, then that too was gone. Callina was staring, pale as death, at the empty blackened hole in the ground where they had been. Regis felt Dyan’s touch almost like a kinsman’s embrace; then they fell apart again…

He was alone, staring from his isolated watch-post on the wall at the empty space where the great heap of weapons had been. He heard his grandfather’s voice, seizing this opportunity as if he himself had been responsible:

“Kneel now, Beltran of Aldaran, and swear Compact to your assembled equals,” he said, using the word Comyn. Still somewhat dazed at the destruction which had overshadowed his dramatic gesture of giving up his weapons, Beltran knelt and spoke the ritual words.

“And now,” he said, coming up to Callina and bending to kiss her fingertips, “I claim my promised wife.”

She was rigid, conceding only the cold tips of her fingers, but she said, in a voice only half audible, “I will handfast myself to you tonight. I so swear.” Regis could not see her now, he was too far away, but he knew she was cold with rage, and he did not blame her at all.

And then he caught another stray thought he hardly recognized.

I do not need these weapons, for there is a better one at my command than anything the Terrans have made—

Was that Dyan? He did not recognize the touch. Nor would he recognize Beltran’s; when he had been imprisoned in Castle Aldaran he had been a boy, without laran, unwakened, and he would not have recognized Beltran’s mental “voice.”

But a cold and icy shudder went over him, as he knew just what weapon was meant. Was Beltran really mad enough to think of using— that?

And if I have power over Sharra, is it I that must face it?

He had a certain amount of power over the Form of Fire, at least when it manifested itself within a matrix. But neither Rafe nor Javanne had been fully inside Sharra. He did not think he could free Lew’s matrix as he had freed theirs. Lew had been closely sealed to Sharra… and Regis cringed away from that thought.

But he must risk it… but first he should give Rafe’s message. A brief, swift searching told him Lew was nowhere in the crowd at his feet, and he realized that something was happening to his laranfor which he had not in the least been prepared: he was using it almost carelessly, without effort.

Is this, then, the Hastur Gift?

Forcibly he put that thought, that fear, aside, and went in search of Lew Alton. By the time he found him, Rafe would be there, and he sensed that Lew would not want to confront Rafe Scott unprepared.

Nor was Regis prepared for seeing Lew as he saw him when first old Andres ushered him into the Alton apartments. It did not seem, for a moment, that it was Lew at all, it did not seem that it was a person at all, just a swirling mass of forces, a presence of anger, a touch of a familiar voice.. .Kennard? But he is dead… and a swift awareness of the terrifying Form of Fire. Regis blinked and somehow managed to bring Lew’s physical presence into focus, to bring the new and terrifying dimensions of his own laranunder control. What was happening to him? He never used laranlike this, he rarely used it at all… but now, giving it even the slightest mental lease seemed to mean that it would fly like a hawk, free, unwilling to return to being hooded— He forced it down, forced himself to seeLew instead of simply touching him. But the touch came anyhow, and through the texture of it he recognized something he had felt when he linked with Dyan. Quite simply he found himself saying aloud, “But of course; he was your father’s cousin, and close kin to the Altons. Lew, didn’t you know that Dyan had the Alton Gift?”

Of course, this is how he could force rapport on Danilo, this is how he makes his will known and enforces it…

But this is misuse…he uses it thus, to force his will… and this is the gravest crime for one withlaran—

He was never trained in its use… He was sent from the Tower… The Alton Gift can kill, and they turned him loose, untrained, not knowing his own power…

Perhaps like mine, wakening late and suddenly growing as mine has grown, like growing out of my clothes when I was a lad, I am not strong enough nor big enough to contain this monstrous thing which is the Hastur Gift…

With main force Regis shut off the flow and said shakily aloud, “Lew, can you put a damper on? I’m not—not used to this.”

Lew nodded, went quickly to a control, and after a moment Regis felt the soothing vibration, blurring the patterns. He was again alone, in control of his own mind. Exhausted, he dropped in a chair.

Dyan is not to blame. The Council did not do their duty by him, but turned him loose, his Gift untrained, unchanneled…

As with mine! But again Regis stopped the flow of thought; thinking, in dismay and outrage, that the damper should have done that. Before they could speak, the door opened and Rafe came in, unannounced.

Lew’s face darkened; but Rafe said “Cousin—” in such a pleading way that Lew gave him an uneasy smile. He said, “Come in, Rafe. None of this is your fault; you’re a victim too.”

“It’s taken me all this time to get up courage enough to tell you this,” said Rafe, “but you have to know. Something the Legate said this morning meant that I didn’t dare wait any longer. I want you to come with me, Lew. There’s something you must see.”

“Can’t you tell me what it is?” Lew asked.

Rafe hesitated and said, “I would rather say this to you alone—” with an uneasy glance at Regis.

Lew’s voice was brusque. “Whatever you have to say; I’ve no secrets from Regis.”

Regis thought, I don’t deserve such confidence. But he slammed his mind shut, wanting no more of the telepathic leakage he suddenly seemed unable to shut out of his mind.

“There was no woman here to take charge,” said Rafe. “I went to your foster-sister. She agreed to take charge of her.”

“Of whom, in God’s name?” Lew demanded, then his mind quickly leaped to conclusions.

“This alleged child who’s been gossiped about in the Guards?”

Rafe nodded and led the way. It was not Linnell, however, who faced them, but Callina.

“I knew,” she said in a low voice. “Ashara told me… there are not many female children in the Domains who might be trained as I have been trained, and I think—I think Ashara wants her…” and she stopped, her words choking off. She gestured to an inner room. “She is there… she was afraid in a strange place and I made her sleep…”

In a small cot, a little girl, five or six years old, lay sleeping. Her hair was copper-red, freshly minted; scattered across her face, which was triangular, scattered with pale gold freckles. She murmured drowsily, still fast asleep.