Marion Bradley - The Sword of Aldones

What had killed Linnell? No one had touched her, except Kathie. She was not, like Dio, a sensitive.

And then I understood.

I had killed Linnell.

All evening, intuitively, Linnell had been striving for contact with her duplicate. Their instinct had been better than my science. I — pitiful, damned, blind imbecile — I had blocked them away from one another. When the horror of Sharra had been loosed, Linnell had instinctively reached for the safety of contact with her duplicate. What had I said to Marius? One body can’t take it…

And the bypass circuit in Kathie!s mind had thrown Linnell into contact with me — and through me, into that deadly matrix in Kadarin’s hands. Years ago, Sharra had been given a foothold in my brain. And force flows toward the weaker pole. It had all rushed into the unprotected Linnell, overloading her young nerves and immature body.

She had gone out like a burnt match.

Havoc had indeed raged in the Comyn. Linnell, the Ride-now, Derik, Dio. I smiled, grimly. The defenses I’d given Dio had probably saved her from the fate of her brothers. And after her malice-Blinding light broke suddenly on me. There wasn’t a scrap of malice in Dio. In her own way, the perverse little imp had been warning me!,

A narrow chink of moonlight lay in a cold streak across my face; in the shadows there was a stir, a step and a whisper. “Lew, are you asleep?”

The dim light picked out a gleam of silvery hair, and Dio, like a pale ghost, looked down at me. She turned and slid the curtains back, letting the light flood the room and the moons peer over her shoulder.

The chilli radiance cooled my hot face. I found no words to question her. I even thought, incuriously, that I might have fallen asleep and be dreaming she was here. I could see the shadow of the bruise lying on her cheek, and murmured, “I’m sorry I hurt you.”

She only smiled, half-bewildered. Her voice was as dreamy as the unreal light when she bent down to me.

“Lew, your face is so hot—”

“And yours is so cool,” I whispered. I touched the bruise with my good hand, wanting to kiss it. Her face was in shadow, very grave and still. Suddenly, forcefully, Callina came into my mind. Not the aloof Keeper, but the proud and passionate woman defying the council, refusing before Ashara to bare her mind to my touch—

Dio, too, had feared that. Could any woman endure that intimacy, that bond that was deeper than any physical touch? Callina, remote, precious, untouchable — and Dio, who had been everything to me that a woman can be to a man. Or almost everything. And why was I thinking of Callina, with Dio beside me? She seemed to be forcing the thought on me; so strongly, I was almost constrained to speak the name aloud. Her pallid face seemed to flicker, to be Callina’s own, so dreamishly that I could not believe I was awake.

“Why are you here?”

Dio said, very simply, “I always know when you are in pain or suffering.”

She drew my head to her breast. I lay there with my eyes closed. Her body was warm and cool at once and the scent of her was at once fresh and familiar, the mysterious salty smell of tears mingling with the honey and musk of her hair.

“Don’t go away.”

“No. Never.”

“I love you,” I whispered. “I love you.”

For a moment Callina’s sobs deepened — Callina? Callina? She was almost a physical presence between us; rather the two women blended and were one. To which one had. I whispered my love? I did not know. But the soft arms around me were real.

I held her close, knowing with a sort of sick certainty that — as a woman — I had nothing for her now. The telepath’s personal hell, just as painful as ever.

But it didn’t seem to matter. And suddenly I knew that the Dio I had loved on Vainwal, passionate and superficial and hoydenish, was not the real girl at all. This was the real one. I was not the man she had known there, either.

I could not have spoken if I had tried. There was shame, and a proffered apology, in my kiss; but she gave it back as it was given, gently, without passion.

We fell asleep like little children, clasped in each other’s arms.

When i woke, I was alone. For several minutes, in the morning sunlight, I wondered if the whole bizarre episode had been a dream; then, as the curtains parted and Dio came in, a grim smile turned up my mouth. In a dream, I would surely have possessed her.

“I’ve brought you another visitor,” she said. I began to protest; I didn’t want to see anyone. But she pulled the curtains aside — and Marja ran into the room.

She stopped, staring — then ran and flung herself on me with a smothering hug.

I loosened her, staring at Dio. “Gently, chiya, gently, you’ll have me on the floor. Dio, how—”

“I learned about her when Hastur first brought her here,” Dio said. “But Ashara’s Tower is no place for her now. Take care of him, Marja mea,” she added, and before I could ask any more questions, she went away again.

Andres reported that there were Terrans still guarding the castle corridors, but no one came near us all day. I resigned myself to inaction, and spent the day playing with Marja and making a few hazy plans. She would not be taken from me again! Andres seemed puzzled, but there was no way to explain without speaking of Marjorie and Thyra, and even to Andres, I could not do that. I told him, simply, that she was my daughter; he gave me a knowing look and, to my relief, left it at that.

I tried to ask Marja a few careful questions, but the answers were vague and meaningless; all one could expect from so young a child. Toward nightfall, since no one had come to reclaim her, I told Andres to put her to bed in a sleeping-cubicle near my own, and when she had fallen asleep I left her there and called Andres.

“How many Terrans are in the castle?”

“Ten, maybe fifteen. Not Spaceforce — even Lawton wouldn’t have that much insolence. They’re-in plain clothes, and they behave themselves.”

I nodded. “None of them would know me by sight, I suppose. Hunt me up a suit of Terran clothes.”

He gave me a bleak grin. “No use trying to stop you, I suppose. I’ll look after the little lass, then. And, I don’t have to be a telepath to know what you’re thinking, vai dom. I’ve lived with your family half my life. If that don’t answer your question, what would?”

There were many doors to the Alton suites, and the Terrans couldn’t guard them all. In the hallways no one paid the slightest attention to me. They were looking after a Darkovan man with one hand; a man in Terran clothing, one hand stuck in a pocket, roused not the slightest curiosity.

I hesitated outside the Hastur apartments, wanting to take counsel with the old Regent; then, regretfully, passed. If he knew our plan, he might forbid me, and a thousand oaths bound me to obey him. Better not chance it.

I found Callina in her own rooms, seated before Linnell’s harp; her head was buried in her arms and I thought she was crying; then with sudden suspicion, I grabbed her and jerked her head up»

She came up stiffly, resisting; her eyes, blank and dead, stared at me without recognition. “Callina!” I shouted, but I might as well have whispered. I dragged her bodily to her feet. Her eyes were fixed in a lifeless, blue-ice stare. “Wake up!” I shouted, and shook her hard. But I had to put her in a chair and slap her before the spark of life suddenly blazed in her eyes and her head went up.

“What do you think you are doing? Let me go!”

“Callina, you were in trance—”

“Oh, no! No!” She threw herself on me, pressing herself to me in desperate appeal. I caught the words, “Ashara” and ” — send — her — out,” but they meant nothing, and I held her away. I dared not touch her until this was over. Gradually, she calmed. “I’m sorry, Lew. I’m — me again.”