Текст книги "Sharra's Exile"

Автор книги: Marion Zimmer Bradley

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But inside the Chapel, the Comyn of a thousand years ago had put them out of our reach forever. They are guarded in the opposite fashion. An outsider could have picked them up freely; but the outsider couldn’t get into the Chapel at all. No one of Comyn blood could so much as lay a hand on them without instant death.

I said, “Every unscrupulous tyrant in a thousand years of Comyn has been trying to figure that one out.”

“But none of them has had a Keeper on their side,” said Ashara. Callina asked, “A Terran?”

“Not one reared on Darkover,” Ashara said. “An alien, perhaps who knew nothing of the forces here. His mind would be locked and sealed against any forces here, so that he wouldn’t even know they were there. He would pass them, guarded by ignorance.”

“Wonderful,” I said with sarcastic emphasis. “All I have to do is go thirty or forty light-years to a planet out there, force or persuade someone there to come back with me to this planet, without telling him anything about it so he won’t know what he ought to be afraid of, then figure a way to get him inside the Chapel without being fried to idiocy, and hope he’ll hand over the Sword of Aldones when he gets it into his enthusiastic little hand!”

Aahara’s colorless eyes held a flicker of scorn, and suddenly I felt ashamed of my sarcasm.

“Have you been in the matrix laboratory here? Have you seen the screen?”

I remembered, and suddenly knew what it was; one of the almost-legendary psychokinetic transmitters… instantaneously, through space, perhaps through time…

“That hasn’t been done for hundreds of years!”

“I know what Callina can do,” said Ashara with her strange smile. “And I shall be with you…”

She stood up, extended her hands to us both. She touched mine; she felt cold as a corpse, as the surface of a jewel– Her voice was low, and for a moment it seemed almost menacing.

“Callina…”

Callina shrank away from the touch and somehow, though her face was molded in the impassive stillness of a Keeper, it seemed to me that she was weeping. “No!”

“Callina—” the low voice was soft, inexorable. Slowly, Callina held out her hands, let herself touch, join hands with us—

The room vanished. We drifted, fathomless, in blueness, measureless space; blank emptiness like starless space, great bare chasms of nothingness. In Arilinn I had been taught to leave my body behind, go into the overworld of reality where the body is not, where we exist only as thoughts making form of the nothingness of the universe, but this was no region of the overworld I had ever known. I drifted, bodiless, in tingling mist. Then the emptiness between stars was charged with a spark, a flare of force, a stream of life, charging me; I could feel myself as a network of live nerves, lacework of living force. I clenched again the hand that had been cut from me, felt every nerve and sinew in it.

Then, suddenly in the emptiness, a face sketched itself on my mind.

I cannot describe that face, though I know, now, what it was. I saw it three times in all. There are no human words to describe it; it was beautiful beyond imagining, but it was terrible past all conception. It was not even evil, not as men in this life know evil; it was not human enough for that. It was—damnable. Only a fraction of a second it burned behind my eyes, but I knew I had looked straight in at the gates of hell.

I struggled back to reality. I was again in Ashara’s blue-ice room; had I ever left it? Callina’s hands were still clasped in mine, but Ashara was gone. The glass throne was empty, and as I looked on it the throne, too, was gone, vanished into the mirrored shimmer of the room. Had she ever been there at all? I felt giddy and disoriented, but Callina sagged against me, and I caught her, and the feel of her fainting body in my arms brought me back sternly to reality. The touch of her soft robes, of the end of her hair against my hand, seemed to touch some living nerve in me. I clasped her against me, burying my face against her shoulder. She smelled warm and sweet, with a subtle fragrance, not perfume or scent or cosmetic, just the soft scent of her skin, and it dizzied me; I wanted to go on holding her, but she opened her eyes and swiftly was aware again, holding herself upright and away from me. I bent my head. I dared not touch her, and would not against her will, but for that dizzying moment I wanted her more than I had ever wanted any woman living. Was it only that she was Keeper and so forbidden to me? I stood upright again, cold and aching, my face icy where it had lain against her heart; but I had control of myself again. She seemed unaware, immune to the torrent of feeling that raged in me. Of course, she was a Keeper, she had been taught to move beyond all this, immune to passion—

“Callina,” I said, “cousin, forgive me.”

The faintest flicker of a smile moved on her face. “Never mind, Lew. I wish—” she left the rest unspoken, but I realized she was not quite so insulated from my own torment as I had believed.

“I am no more than human,” she said, and again the faint feather-touch to my wrist, the touch of a Keeper, reassured me. It was like a promise, but we drew apart, knowing that there must remain a barrier between us.

“Where is Ashara?” I asked.

Once again the flicker of a troubled smile on her face. “You had better not ask me,” she murmured. “You would never believe the answer.”

I frowned, and again the uncanny resemblance troubled me, the stillness of Ashara in Callina’s quiet face—I could only guess at the bond between the Keepers. Abruptly, Callina moved toward some invisible door and we were outside, on the stone landing, solid, and I wondered if the blue-ice room had ever existed, or if the whole thing had been some kind of bizarre dream.

A dream, for there I was whole and I had two hands– Something had happened. But I did not know what it could have been.

We returned another way to the Tower, and Callina led me through the relay chamber, into the room filled with the strange and mysterious artifacts of the Ages of Chaos. It was warm, and I pulled off my cloak and let the heat soak into my chilled body and aching arm, while Callina moved softly around the laboratory, adjusting specially modulated dampers, and finally gestured to the wide, shimmering glass panel, whose depths made me think of the blue-ice room of Ashara. I stared, frowning, into the cloudy depths. Sorcery? Unknown laws, non-casual sciences? They mingled and were one. The Gift I had borne in my blood, the freak thing in my heredity that made me Comyn, telepath, laranzu, matrix technician—for such things as this I had been bred and trained; why should I fear them? Yet I was afraid, and Callina knew it.

I was trained at Arilinn, oldest and most powerful of the Towers, and had heard something—not much—about screens like this. It was a duplicator—it transmitted a desired pattern; it captured images and the realities behind them—no; it’s impossible to explain, I didn’t—and don’t—know enough about the screens. Including how they were operated; but I supposed Callina knew and I was just there to strengthen her with the strength of the Alton Gift, to lend her power as—the thought sent ice through my veins—I had lent power for the raising of Sharra. Well, that was fair enough; power for power, reparation for betrayal. Still I was uneasy; I had allowed Kadarin to use me for the raising of Sharra without knowing enough about the dangers, and here I was repeating the same mistake. The difference was that I trusted to Callina. But even that frightened me; there had been a time when I had trusted Kadarin, too, called him friend, sworn brother, bredu.

Again I stopped myself. I had to trust Callina; there was no other way. I went and stood before the screen.

Augmented by the screen, I could search, with telepathic forces augmented hundredfold, thousandfold, for such a one as we wanted. Of all the millions and billions of worlds in space and time, somewhere there was a mind such as we wanted, with a certain awareness—and a certain lackof awareness. With the screen we could attune that mind’s vibrations to thisparticular place in time and space; here, now, between the two poles of the screen. The space annihilated by the matrix, we could shift the—well, we call them energons, which is as good a name as any—shift the energons of that particular mind and the body behind it, and bring them here. My mind played with words like matter-transmitter, hyperspace, dimension-travel; but those were only words. The screen was the reality.

I dropped into one of the chairs before the screen, fiddling with a calibration which would allow me to match resonances between myself and Callina—more accurately, between her matrix and mine. I said, not looking up, “You’ll have to cut out the monitor screen, Callina,” and she nodded.

“There’s a bypass relay through Arilinn.” She touched controls and the monitor surface, a glassy screen—large, but half the size of the giant screen before me—blinked fitfully and went dark, shunting every monitored matrix on Darkover out of this relay. A grill crackled, sent out a tiny staccato signal; Callina listened attentively to no sound that I could hear—the message was not audible, and I was too preoccupied to merge into the relays. Callina listened for a moment, then spoke—aloud, perhaps as a courtesy to me, perhaps to focus her own thoughts for the relay.

“Yes, I know, Maruca, but we have cut out the main circuits here in Thendara; you’ll have to monitor from there.” Again the listening silence, then she rapped out, “Put up a third-level barrier around Thendara! That is a direct order from Comyn; observe and comply!” She turned away, sighing.

“That girl is the noisiesttelepath on the planet! Now everyone with a scrap of telepathy on the whole planet will know something is going on in Thendara tonight!”

We had had no choice; I said so. She took her own place before the screen, and I blanked my mind against it, ready for whatever she should demand of me. What sort of alien would suit us? But without volition, at least on my part, a pattern shaped itself on the screen. I saw the dim symbols in the moment before my optic nerve overloaded and I went out; then I was blind and deaf in that instant of overload which is always terrifying, however familiar it may become.

Gradually, without external senses, I found orientation within the screen. My mind, extended through astronomical distances, traversed in fractional seconds whole galaxies and parsecs of subjective spacetime. Vague touches of consciousness, fragments of thought, emotions that floated like shadows—the flotsam of the mental universe.

Then before I felt contact, I saw the white-hot flare in the screen. Somewhere another mind had fitted into the pattern which we had cast out like a net, and when we found the fitting intelligence it had been captured.

I swung out, bodiless, divided into a billion subjective fragments, extended over a vast gulf of spacetime. If anything happened, I would never get back to my body now, but would drift on the spacetime curve forever.

With infinite caution I poured myself into the alien mind. There was a short, terrible struggle. It was embedded-enlaced in mine. The world was a holocaust of molten-glass fire and color. The air writhed. The glow on the screen was a shadow, then solid, then a clearing darkness—

“Now!” I did not speak, simply flung the command at Callina, then light tore at my eyes, there was a ripping shock tearing at my brain, the floor seemed to rock and Callina was flung, reeling, into my arms as the energons seared the air and my brain.

Half stunned, but conscious, I saw that the screen was blank, the alien mind torn free of mine.

And in a crumpled heap on the floor, where she had fallen at the base of the screen, lay a slight, darkhaired woman.

I realized after a moment that I was still holding Callina in my arms; I let her go at the very instant that she moved to free herself of me. She knelt beside the strange woman, and I followed her.

“She’s not dead?”

“Of course not.” With the instincts of the Arilinn-trained, Callina was already feeling for a pulse, though her own was still thready and irregular. “But that—transition—nearly killed us, and we knew what to expect. What do you think it must have been like for her?”

Soft brown hair, falling across her face, hid her features. I brushed it gently back, and stopped, my hand still touching her cheek, in bewilderment.

“Linnell—” I whispered.

“No,” said Callina, “She sleeps in her own room…” but her voice faltered as she looked down at the girl. Then I knew who it must be; the young nurse I had seen on that dreadful night in the Terran hospital in Vainwal. Even knowing, as I did, what had happened, I thought my mind would give way. That transition had taken its toll of me too and I had to take a moment to quiet my own pulses and breathing.

“Avarra be merciful,” Callina whispered. “What have we done?”

Of course, I thought. Of course. Linnell was near to us both; sister, foster-sister. We had spoken with her just tonight. The pattern was at hand. Yet I still wondered, why Linnell, why not duplicate myself, or Callina?…

I tried to put it into simple words, more for myself than Callina.

“Cherilly’s Law. Everything in the universe—you, me, that chair, the drinking fountain in Port Chicago spaceport– everything exists in one, and only one, exact duplicate. Nothing is unique except for a matrix; even atoms have minute differences in the orbit of their electrons… there are equations to calculate the number of possible variations, but I’m not enough of a mathematician to calculate them. Jeff could probably reel them all off to you.”

“So this is… Linnell’s identical twin… ?”

“More alike than that; only once in a million times or so would a twin be the duplicate under Cherilly’s Law. This is her realtwin; same fingerprints, same retinal patterns and brainwave patterns, same betagraphs and blood type. She won’t be much like Linnell in personality, probably, because the duplicates of Linnell’s environmentare duplicated all over the Galaxy.” I pointed to the small scar beside her chin; turned over the limp wrist where the mark of Comyn was embedded in the flesh. “Probably a birthmark,” I said, “but it’s identical with Linnell’s Seal, see? Flesh and blood are identical; same blood type, and even her chromosomes, if you could monitor that deeply, would be identical with Linnell’s.”

Callina stared and stared. “She can live in this—this alien environment, then?”

“If she’s identical,” I said. “Her lungs breathe the same ratio of oxygen in the air as ours do, and her internal organs are adjusted to the same gravity.”

“Can you carry her?” Callina asked, “She’ll get a dreadful shock if she wakes up in this place.”

I grinned humorlessly. “She’ll get one anyhow.” But I managed to scoop her up one-handed; she was frail and light, like Linnell. Callina went ahead of me, pulled back curtains, showed me where to lay her down on a couch in a small bare room—I supposed the young men and women who worked in the relays sometimes took a nap here instead of returning to their own rooms. I covered her, for it was cold.

“I wonder where she comes from?” Callina murmured.

“From a world with about the same gravity as Darkover, which narrows it a little,” I evaded. I could not remember the nurse’s name, some barbaric Terran syllables. I wondered if she would recognize me. I should explain it all to Callina. But her face was lined with exhaustion, making her look gaunt, twice her age. “Let’s leave her to sleep off the shock– and get some sleep ourselves.”

We went down to the foot of the Tower. Callina stood in the doorway with me, her hands lightly resting in mine. She looked haggard, worn, but lovely to me after the shared danger, the intimacy created by matrix work, a closeness greater than family, greater than that of lovers– I bent and kissed her, but she turned her head so that my kiss fell only on a mouthful of soft, fine, sweet-scented hair. I bowed my own head and did not press her. She was right. It would have been insanity; we were both exhausted.

She murmured, as if finished a sentence I had started “… and I must go and see if Linnell is really all right…”

So she, too, had shared that sense of portent, of doom? I put her gently away, and went out of the Tower, but I did not go to my rooms to sleep as I meant to do. Instead I paced in the courtyard, like a trapped animal, battling unendurable thoughts, until the red sun came up and Festival dawned in Thendara.

CHAPTER NINE

« ^ »

The morning of Festival dawned red and misty; Regis Hastur, restless, watched the sun come up, and asked his body-servant to arrange for flowers to be sent to his sister Javanne.

I should send gifts, too, to the mothers of my children—

It was simple enough to arrange that baskets of fruits and flowers should be sent, but he felt profoundly depressed and, paradoxically, lonely.

There is no reason I should be lonely. Grandfather would be only too happy to arrange a marriage for me, and I could choose any woman in Thendara for wife, and have as many concubines as a Dry-Towner, and no one could criticize me, not even if I chose to keep a male favorite or two on the side.

I suppose, when it comes to that, I am alone because I would rather be alone, and responsible to no one…

… except the whole damned population of the Domains! I cannot call my life my own… and I will not marry so that they will approve of me!

There was only one person in Thendara, he reflected, whom he really wished to send a gift; and because of custom, he could not do that. He would not degrade what was between Danilo and himself by the pretense that it was the more conventional tie. He sat at his high window, looking out over the city, pondering yesterday’s end to the Council, frightened because he had done what he had done, manifested the Form of Fire before them all. Somehow, without training more than the barest minimum, so that he could use his laranwithout becoming ill, he had acquired a new Gift he did not know he had, nor did he know what to do with it. He knew so little of the Hastur Gift and he suspected that his grandfather knew little more.

If only Kennard had still been alive, he would have gone to the kindly kinsman he had learned to call “Uncle” and set his puzzlement before him. Kennard had spent years in Arilinn and knew everything that was known about the Comyn powers. But Kennard was dead, under a faraway alien sun, and Lew seemed to know little more than himself. Moreover, Lew had his own troubles.

At this point he was summoned to breakfast with his grandfather. For a moment he considered sending a message that he was not hungry—he had made a point with his grandfather and was not inclined to give way on it—but then he remembered that it was, after all, Festival, and kinsmen should put aside their quarrels for the day. In any case he would have to confront his grandfather at the great ball tonight; he might as well meet him in private first.

Danvan Hastur bowed to his grandson, then embraced him and as Regis took a seat before the laden table, he noticed that his grandfather had ordered all his favorite delicacies. He supposed this was as near to an apology as he would ever have from the old man. There was coffee from the Terran Zone, in itself a great luxury, and various honey cakes and fruits, as well as the more traditional fare of porridge and nut breads. As he helped himself, Danvan Hastur said, “I ordered a basket of fruits and candies sent to Javanne in your name.”

“You might have trusted me to remember, sir,” said Regis, smiling, “but with that brood of children, the sweets won’t go to waste.”

But thinking of Javanne set him to remembering again the eerie power he had somehow acquired over Javanne’s matrix when it had been possessed by Sharra– He did not understand and there was no one to ask. Should he go and demand the audience with Ashara which Callina had denied him? Lew’s matrix was overshadowed by Sharra; perhaps I would have power over that too—

But he feared to try and fail. And then he remembered that there was another matrix, and one within his own reach, which had been overshadowed by Sharra; though at a greater distance than Lew’s; Lew had been in the very heart of Sharra’s flames… Rafe Scott was concealed in the Terran Zone, and Regis didn’t blame him. But did Rafe even know that Beltran was here, threatening all of them? Yes, he would pay a call upon Rafe this morning.

He declined another cup of coffee… although he was grateful for the gesture his grandfather had made, he did not really like it… and pushed his chair back, just as the servant announced:

“Lord Danilo, Warden of Ardais.”

Hastur greeted Danilo with affable courtesy, and invited him to join them at the table; Regis knew that his grandfather was underlining a conceded point. But Danilo, bowing to them both, said, “I am here with a message from Lord Ardais, sir. Beltran of Aldaran has brought his honor guard within the city walls and has invited you to witness his formal giving up of Terran weapons into the hands of his promised wife, Lady Aillard.”

“Send a messenger to tell him I will be there within a few moments,” said Hastur, rising. “Regis, will you join me?”

“Please excuse me, Grandfather, I have an errand elsewhere,” Regis said, and though his grandfather did not look pleased, he did not question Regis.

“I’ll leave you two alone, then,” he said, and withdrew. Regis discovered his appetite had returned; he poured himself the coffee he had refused and some for Danilo too, and passed the platter of honey cakes. Danilo took one, and said, sipping curiously at the coffee, “This is a Terran luxury, no? If Lord Dyan has his way, there will be no more of this…”

“I can well do without it,” Regis said. He took a handful of candied blackfruit and offered it silently to Danilo; Danilo, accepting the sweetmeats, smiled at him and said, “No, and I have no Festival gift for you, either– I am not Dyan, to send presents to his favorites as I would do to my sister if I had one.”

We do not need to gift one another…

Still, it is a sign I wish I might show…

Regis said aloud, breaking the moment of intimacy that was more intense than any physical caress, “I must go to the Terran Zone, Dani; I must see if Captain Scott knows what is going on…”

“I will go with you, if you wish,” Danilo offered.

“Thank you, but there is no need to anger your foster-father,” Regis said, “and if you go there against his will, he will take it as defiance. Keep the peace, Dani; there are enough quarrels within Comyn, we need no more.” He put his honey-cake aside, suddenly losing his appetite again. “Grandfather will be angry enough that I am not there to witness the Aldaran men giving up their Terran weapons. But Beltran will never love me, no matter what I do, and I would as soon not be there to see this—” he searched for a word, considered and rejected “farce,” then shrugged.

“Dyan may trust Beltran; I will not,” he said, and left.

Some time after, he gave his name and business to the Spaceforce guard, black-leathered, at the gates of the Terran Zone. The Spaceforce man stared, as well he might—one of the powerful Hasturs here with no more escort than a single Guardsman? But he used his communicator, and after a moment said, “The Legate will see you in his office, Lord Hastur.”

Regis was not Lord Hastur—that was his grandfather’s title—but there was no use expecting Spaceforce men to know proper courtesy and protocol. Lawton, in the Legate’s office, rising to greet him, used his proper address and got his title right, even saying it with the proper inflection, which was not all that easy for a Terran. But then, of course, Lawton was half Darkovan.

“You honor me, Lord Regis,” Lawton said, “but I hadn’t expected to see you here. I suspect I’ll be at the ball in Comyn Castle tonight—the Regent sent me a formal invitation.”

“It’s Rafe Scott I came to see,” Regis said, “but I didn’t want to do it behind your back and be accused of spying, or worse.”

Lawton waved that aside.

“Would you rather see him here? Or in his own quarters?”

“In his quarters, I think.”

“I’ll send someone to show you the way,” Lawton said. “But first, a question. Do you know the man they call Kadarin by sight?”

“I think I’d know him if I saw him.” Regis remembered the picture he had seen in Lew’s mind, the day the Alton townhouse had burned.

“What kind of chance would we have of finding him, if we sent Spaceforce into the Old Town? Is there anyone there who would try and hide him from justice?”

“He’s wanted by the Guardsmen there too,” Regis said. “It’s fairly certain that he was responsible for a fire and explosion with contraband explosives…” Briefly, he outlined to Lawton what he had seen.

“Spaceforce could find him faster than your guards,” the Terran Legate suggested. Regis shook his head.

“I’m sure they could,” he said, “but, believe me, I wouldn’t advise sending them.”

“There ought to be a treaty that we could at least look for a wanted criminal,” Lawton said grimly. “As it is, once he sets foot in the Old Town he’s safe from our men—and if he somehow sneaks into the Trade City, safe from your Guardsmen. I’d like to know why we can’t have that much cooperation at least.”

So would I, sir. If I were in charge, you’d have it. But I’m not, and Grandfather doesn’t feel that way. Regis realized suddenly that he was ashamed of his grandfather’s views. They had indeed sworn to a certain amount of cooperation with the Terrans, many times over the past years; more especially after the epidemic in which the Terran Medic division had sent an expert to assist them. But now Kennard, who had started this kind of cooperation, was dead, and it seemed the informal alliance was falling apart; Regis wished Lawton had enough laranso that he need not explain all this, through the slow and clumsy medium of words.

He said, fumbling, “It’s—it’s not a good time to ask for that, Mr. Lawton. It would take a lot of arranging. We’ll deal with Kadarin if we find him, and I assume you will if you catch him here. But this is not the time to ask for formal cooperation between the Guard and Spaceforce. The important thing is to catch that man Kadarin and deal with him– not argue about whose jurisdiction he should be under.”

Lawton struck the desk before him with an angry fist. “And while we argue about it, he’s laughing at both of us,” he said. “Listen here. A few days ago, the Orphanage in the Trade City was broken into, and a child’s room was entered. No child was hurt, no one was kidnapped, but the children in that dormitory had a dreadful fright, and they described the man to Spaceforce—and it seems likely that Kadarin was the one. We don’t know what he was doing there, but he managed to escape again, and he’s probably hiding out in the Old Town. And now I’ve heard that Beltran of Aldaran has brought an army down to Thendara—”

This was Comyn business; Regis had no wish to argue it with a Terran, however friendly. He said somewhat stiffly, “Even as we stand here, sir, Lord Aldaran is making a solemn oath to observe Compact, and giving up all his Terran weapons. I know that old Kermiac of Aldaran was a Terran ally, but I believe Beltran feels otherwise.”

“But it was Beltran, not Kermiac, who managed to burn the spaceport at Caer Donn, and half of the town with it,” Lawton said. “How do we know that Beltran hasn’t brought his men here to join Kadarin, and try some such trick on the Thendara spaceport? I tell you, we have to find Kadarin before that gets out of hand again. You probably don’t realize that the Empire has sovereign authority over all its colonies where there’s a threat to a spaceport; they’re not under local authority at all, but under the interplanetary authority of the Senate. You people have no Senate representation, but you area Terran colony and I dohave the authority to send Spaceforce in—”

This sounds like what Lerrys was saying. Regis said, “If you ever want good relations with Comyn Council, Lawton, I wouldn’t advise it. Spaceforce quartered in the Old Town would be looked upon as—”

As an act of war. Darkover, with swords and the Guardsmen, to fight the interplanetary majesty of the Empire?

“Why do you think I am telling you this?” Lawton asked, with a touch of impatience, and Regis wondered if indeed the man had read his thoughts. “We haveto find Kadarin! We could arrest Beltran and call him in for questioning. I have the authority to fill your whole damned city with Terran Intelligence and Spaceforce so that Kadarin would have as much chance as a lighted match on a glacier!” He sounded angry. “I need some cooperation or I’ll have to do exactlythat; one of my jobs is to see that Thendara doesn’t go the way of Caer Donn!”

“The agreement whereby you respect the local government—”

“But if the local government is harboring a dangerous criminal, I’ll have to override your precious Council! Don’t you understand? This is an Empire planet! We’ve given you a lot of leeway; it’s Empire policy to let local governments have their head, as long as they don’t damage interplanetary matters. But among other things, I am responsible for the safety of the Spaceport!”

Regis said angrily, “Are you accusing us of harboring Kadarin? We have a price on his life too.”

“You have been remarkably ineffective in finding him,” Lawton said. “I’m under pressure too, Regis; I’m trying to hold out against my superiors, who can’t imagine why I’m humoring your Council this way with Kadarin at large, and—” he hesitated, “Sharra.”

So you too know what Sharra’s flames can do—

Lawton sounded angry. “I’m doing my best, Lord Regis, but my back’s to the wall. I’m under just as much pressure as you are. If you want us to stay on our side of the wall, find us Kadarin, and turn him over to us, and we’ll hold off. Otherwise—I won’t have a choice. If I refuse to handle it, they’ll simply transfer me out, and someone else will do it—someone without half the stake I have in keeping this world peaceful.” He drew a long breath. “Sorry; I didn’t mean to imply that any of this was your fault, or even that you could do anything about it. But if you have any influence with anyone in the Council, you’d better tell them about it. I’ll send someone to show you the way to Captain Scott’s quarters.”