Marion Bradley - The Sword of Aldones

“You ought to be hurt,” I said savagely. “You ought to be beaten! What are they going to do to Callina? Tell me, or I swear, Dio, I’ve never used the Gift on a woman before, but I’ll tear it out of you if I have to!”

“You couldn’t!” We were facing each other now in a blaze of fury that obliterated everything outside. “Remember?”

“Damn you!” The truth made me savage. Dio alone of all people was completely and perfectly protected against my Gift, forever — because of what had been between us on Vainwal. It had to be that way.

There are things no telepath, no man, can control. That-touching — in intimacy, is one of them. And Dio was one of the hypersensitive Ridenow. To safeguard her sanity, I had given her certain defenses against me. I could never take more from her, telepathically, than she wanted to give. More was impossible. I could remove that barrier — if I wanted to kill her. No other way.

I swore, impotently. Suddenly Dio flung her arms around my neck, eyes burning at me like green flames. “You blind fool,” she choked, “you can’t see what’s before your very eyes, and you’ll go blundering in again and spoil it all! Can’t you trust me?”

She was very close, and the contact was dizzying. Realizing, what she was doing, I thrust her suddenly and roughly away. “That won’t get you anywhere.”

Her face hardened. “Very well. There is a rumor current — and believed — that only a virgin may hold Callina’s particular powers. There is, shall I say, a certain faction which holds to the belief that we would all be better off if Callina were — let’s say — made suddenly powerless. And since your conduct is above reproach, there is one way to remedy the situation—”

I stared at her, dimly beginning to realize what she meant. But that was horrible! And was there any man on Darkover who would dare — “Dio, if this is your idea of a filthy joke—”

“A joke, but it’s on Ashara,” she said. Suddenly she grew quiet and deadly serious. “Lew, trust me. I can’t explain, but you’ve got to keep out of it. Callina isn’t what you think, not at all. She isn’t—”

I brought my hand back and slapped her, hard. The blow sent her reeling. “You’ve had that coming for a year,” I grated.

Suddenly Regis was close beside me; in an instant he had caught the overflowing of my thought, and his face paled. “Callina!”

Dio stood holding her cheek where I had slapped her, staring open-mouthed; but she threw herself forward on me now. “Wait,” she begged, “Wait, you don’t understand—”

I thrust her aside, swearing. Regis kept pace with me. Finally he breathed, “But who would dare? A Keeper, remember — actually to lay hands on her?”

I stopped. “Dyan,” I said at last, quietly. “What did she say, in council? No man lives to maul me three times. If that were the first—”

We were in light surface contact. Abruptly I stopped him; he looked at me grimly and the touch of his mind fell from mine as clasped hands loosen.

“I thought so,” I said. “When we touch, all the strength drains out of us both. They’ve smuggled some trap-matrix in there, eighth or ninth level, the kind that picks up vital energy—” My jaw fell. “Sharra!”

“Lew, are we feeding that damned thing?”

“We’ll hope not,” I said!"Can you touch Callina?”

I felt Regis, almost instinctively, grope for contact again; quickly, I barricaded myself. “Don’t ever do that!” I commanded. The fumbling touch was raw agony; yet endure it I must, danger or no, at least once more. “Regis, when I say the word, link with me — for about a thousandth of a second. But whatever you do, don’t freeze into rapport with me! If you do, we’ll both burn out. Remember, you’re Hastur and I’m Alton!”

He swallowed, convulsively. “You’d better do the linking. I can’t control it yet.”

For the barest instant, then, we contacted, in a scanning that sifted the whole diameter of the crowd. It was not a hundredth of a second, but even that flung us apart in a shock of blinding pain. A full tenth of a second would have burned out every spark of vital energy in our bodies. To who-ever controlled the hidden matrix, it must have flamed like a starship on a radar screen.

But I knew what I wanted. Somewhere in the castle, a trap-matrix — not Sharra this time — was focused, with obscene intensity, on the weakest link in the Comyn: Derik Elhalyn.

And I had thought him only drunk!

The thick, inarticulate speech; the irritable confusion of brain, the fumbling limbs — all symptoms of a mind under an unmonitored matrix. And whoever set it, had a mind both perverted and sadistic — that this complex revenge on Callina should be carried out by Linnell’s lover!

I reached for Callina, but only emptiness greeted my seeking mind. It is a horrifying thing to feel only an empty place in the fluid mechanism of space, where once there was a living mind. Could even death blank her away so completely?

Regis turned a strained, heartbroken face to me.

“Lew, if he’s touched her—”

“Easy. Derik doesn’t know, he never will know what he’s doing, you know. Listen; I need your help. I’m going straight into Derik’s mind and try to lift the matrix trap.” For the first time in my life I was grateful for the Alton Gift, which could force rapport — and which could go into a matrix without the half-dozen monitors and dampers an ordinary matrix mech would need. “Those things are plain hell, Regis. Now, when I get it lifted, you try to break it up. But don’t you touch me — or Derik — or you’ll kill all three of us.”

It was a desperate chance. No sane person will go into a mind controlled by a trap-matrix; it is walking into a blind alley which may be filled with monsters ready to spring. And I would have to drop all my barriers, and trust the untried strength of a newly-Zaran Hastur who could kill me with a random touch.

Every instinct screamed no; but I reached out and focused on Derik.

And knew, at once, I had touched that thing before; when I tried to probe Lerrys.

Derik, like a man who feels the sting of a knife through an incomplete anesthetic, twisted to escape; but this time I held fast, grimly- forcing- my focused strength as a wedge between mind and the trick matrix that held it in submission.

Behind me, as a man may look at mirrored light he dares not face, I sensed Regis; he had seized on that alien force, and he was tearing it to bits; destroying each strand of force as I lifted that telepathic web, thread by thread, out of the nerves of Derik’s brain.

But now it was being forced on me, too. As a man at a screen may watch two starships battle, so the holder of this unholy matrix was watching the three-way duel, perhaps ready with a new weapon. Necessity and the need for haste made me careless how I tortured Derik; but I knew, too, if Derik were himself, he would thank me for this.

As I forced down barrier after barrier, something fought me, a grotesque parody of the real Derik; but I won. I felt it flicker, vanish like a trace of smoke, burnt away. The compulsion was gone, the trap-matrix destroyed — and Derik, at least, was clean.

I withdrew;

Regis leaned against a pillar, his face dead white. I asked, “Could you tell who was controlling it?”

“Not a trace. When the matrix shattered, I felt Callina, but then—” Regis frowned, “she blanked again, and all I felt was Ashara! Why Ashara?”

I didn’t know. But if Ashara were aroused and aware, at least she would protect Callina.

We had given ourselves away, Regis and I; we had lost vital strength; but for the moment, perhaps, we were safe. My main worry now was for Regis. I was mature, trained in the use of these powers, and I knew the limits of my own endurance. He didn’t. Unless he learned caution, the next step would be nerve depletion and collapse.