Marion Bradley - The Sword of Aldones

“You can see — time. Tell me. The child Dyan calls mine—”

“It is yours,” Ashara said.

“Who—”

“I know. You’ve been celibate, except for Diotima Ridenow Comyn, since your Marjorie died.” She looked right through my astonished stare. “No, I didn’t read your mind, I thought the Ridenow girl might be suitable to train as I — as I trained Callina. She was not. I’m not concerned with your moralities or Diotima’s; it’s a matter of physical nerve alignments.” She went on, passionlessly, “Hastur would not accept the bare word of those who brought the child; so he brought her to my keeping for search. She is here in the Tower. You may see her. She is yours. Come with me.”

To my surprise — I don’t know why, but somehow I had felt that Ashara could not leave her strange blue-ice room-she led me through another of the bewildering blue doors and into a plain circular room. One of the furry nonhuman mutes — the servants of the Keeper’s Tower — scurried away on noiseless padded feet.

In the cool normal light Ashara’s flickering figure was colorless, almost invisible. I wondered; was it the sorceress herself, or merely a projection she wanted me to see? The room was simply furnished, and on a narrow white cot at the center, a little girl lay fast asleep. Pale reddish-gold hair lay scattered on the pillow.

I went slowly to the child, and looked down. She was very small; five or six, maybe younger. And as I looked down I knew they had told the truth. In ways impossible to explain, except to a telepath and an Alton, I knew; this was my own child, born of my own seed. The tiny triangular face bore not the slightest resemblance to my own; but my blood knew. Not my father’s. Not my brother’s. My own. My flesh.

“Who was her mother?” I asked softly.

“You’ll be happier all your life if I never tell you.”

“I can take it! Some light woman of Carthon or Daillon?”

“No.”

The child murmured, stirred and opened her eyes. I took one step toward her — then turned, in an agony of appeal, on Ashara. Those eyes, those eyes, gold-flecked amber…

“Marjorie,” I said hoarsely, painfully, “Marjorie died, she died …”

“She is not Marjorie Scott’s daughter.” Ashara’s voice was clear, cool, pitiless. “Her mother was Thyra Scott.”

“Thyra? I fought an insane impulse to laugh. “Thyra? That’s impossible! I never — I wouldn’t have touched that she-devil’s fingertips, much less—”

“Nevertheless, this is your child. And Thyra’s. The details are not clear to me. There is a time — I am not sure. They may have had you drugged, hypnotized. Perhaps I could find out. It would not be easy, even for me. That part of your mind is a closed and sealed room. It does not matter.”

I shut my teeth on a black, sickening rage. Thyra! That red hellion, so like and so unlike Marjorie, perfect foil for Kadarin! What had they done? How—

“It does not matter. It is your child.”

Resentfully, accepting the fact, I glowered at the little girl. She sat up, tense as a scared small animal, and it wrenched at me with sudden hurt. I had seen Marjorie look like that. Small, scared. Lost and lonesome.

I said, as gently as I could, “Don’t be afraid of me, chiya. I’m not a very pretty sight, but I don’t eat little girls.”

The little girl smiled. The small pointed face was suddenly charming; a tiny gnome’s grin marred by a dimple. There were twin gaps in the straight little teeth.

“They said you were my father.”

I turned, but Ashara was gone, leaving me alone with my unexpected daughter. I sat down uneasily on the edge of the cot. “So it would seem. How do they call you, chiya?”

“Marja,” she said shyly. “I mean Marguerhia—” she lisped the name, Marjorie’s name, in the odd old-world dialect still heard in the mountains sometimes. “Marguerhia Kadarin, but I just be Marja.” She knelt upright, looking me over. “Where is your other hand?”

I laughed uneasily. I wasn’t used to children. “It was hurt, and they had to take it off.”

Her amber eyes were enormous. She snuggled against my knee, and I put my aim around her, still trying to get it clear in my mind.

Thyra’s child. Thyra Scott had been Kadarin’s wife — if you could call it that. But everyone knew he was rumored to be half-brother to the Scotts, Zeb Scott’s child by one of the half-human mountain things. Back in the Hellers, half-brothers and sisters sometimes married; and it was not uncommon for such a marriage to adopt the child of one by someone else, thus avoiding the worst consequences of too much inbreeding. I scowled, trying to penetrate the gray murk which surrounded part of the Sharra affair in my mind. I had never probed that partial amnesia; I had felt, instinctively, that madness might lie there.

Perhaps I had been drugged with aphrosone. I knew how that worked. The one drugged lives a life outwardly normal, 15ut he himself knows nothing of what he does, losing continuity of thought between each breath. Memory is retained in symbolic dreams; a psychiatrist, hearing what was dreamed during the time spent under aphrosone, can unravel the symbols and tell the victim what really happened. I had never wanted to know. I didn’t now.

“Where were you brought up, Marja?”

“In a big house with a lot of other little girls and boys,” she said. “ They’re orphans. I’m not. I’m something else. Matron says it’s a wicked word I must never, never say, but I’ll whisper it to you.”

“Don’t.” I winced slightly; I could guess.

And Lawton, in the Trade City, had told me; Kadarin never goes anywhere — except to the spaceman’s orphanage.

Marja put her head sleepily on my shoulder. I started to lay her down. Then I felt a curious stir and realized, abruptly, that the child had reached out and made contact with my mind!

The thought was staggering. Amazed, I stared at the tiny girl. Impossible! Children do not have telepathic power — even Alton children! Never!

Never? I couldn’t say that; obviously, Marja did have it.

I caught my arms around her; but I broke the contact gently, not knowing how much she could endure.

But one thing I did know. Whoever had the legal right of it, this little girl was mine! And no one and nothing was going to keep her from me. Marjorie was dead; but Marja lived, whoever her parents, with Marjorie’s face sketched in her features, the child Marjorie would have borne me if she had lived, and the rest was better forgotten. And if anyone — Hastur, Dyan, Kadarin himself — thought they could keep my daughter from me, they were welcome to try!

Dawn was paling outside the tower, and abruptly I was conscious of exhaustion. I had had quite a night. I laid Marja down in the cot; drew up the warm covers under her chin. She looked up at me wistfully, without a word.

On an impulse I bent and hugged her. “Sleep well, little daughter,” I said, and went very softly out of the room.

The next day, Beltran of Aldaran, with his mountain escort, came to the Comyn Castle.

I had not wanted to be present at the ceremonies which welcomed him; but Hastur insisted and I finally agreed. I’d have to meet Beltran sometime. It had better be among strangers where we could both be impersonal.

He greeted me with some constraint; we had once been friends, but the past lay between us, with its grim shadow of blood. I was grateful for the set phrases of custom; I could mouth them without examining them for a hostility I dared not show.

Beltran presented me, ceremoniously, to some of his escort. A few of them remembered me from years ago; but I looked away as I met a dark familiar face.