Marion Bradley - The Sword of Aldones

I shook my head. No living being, save those of Comyn blood, had ever set foot on the shores of Hali.

She said confusedly, “But I’ve been here before—”

“No. You have some of my memories, that’s all.” I patted her wrist clumsily, as if she were Linnell. “Don’t be afraid.” Twin pillars rose white, a rainbow mist sparkling like a veil between them. I frowned at the trembling rainbow. “Even blocked, it would strip your mind. I’ll have to do what I did before; hold your mind completely under mine.” She shuddered, and I warned tonelessly, “I must. The veil is a force-field attuned to the Comyn brain. It won’t hurt us but it would kill you.”

She glanced at Callina. “Why not you?”

Callina shook her head. “It has something to do with polarity. I’m a Keeper. If I tried to submerge your mind for more than a second or two, it would destroy you — permanently.” A curious horror showed in her mind. “Ashara showed me — once.”

I picked Kathie up bodily. When she protested, I scowled. “You fainted once, and went into hysterics the second time I touched you,” I reminded her grimly. “If you do that again, inside the Veil, I want to make sure you’ll get out the other side.”

This time, however, she was barriered against me, by my own bypass circuit. It was easy to damp out the alien brainwaves. We got through the shimmering, bunding rainbow, with blurred eyes; I set her down and withdrew as gently as I could.

The rhu fead stretched bare before us, dim and cool. There were doors and long passages, filled with chilly curls of mist. Kathie made a sudden turn into one passage and began to walk forward into the dimness.

“Lew, I know! How do I know where to go?”

The passage angled into an open space of white stone and curtained crimson. A dais, set back into the wall and paneled in iridescent webs, held a blue crystal coffer. I set my foot on the first step—

I could not pass. This was the inner barrier; the barrier no Comyn could penetrate. I leaned on an invisible wall; Callina, curious, put out her hands and saw them jerk back of themselves. Kathie asked, “Are you still blocking my mind?”

“A little.”

“Then don’t. That bit of you is what holds me back.”

I nodded and withdrew the blocking circuit. Kathie smiled at me, less like Linnell than she had ever looked; then walked through the invisible barrier.

She disappeared into a blue of darkening cloud. A blaze of fire seared up; I wanted to shout at her not to be afraid, it was only an illusion — but even my voice would not pass the barrier reared against the Comyn. A dim silhouette, she vanished; the flames swallowed her. Then a wild glare swept up to the roof and a burst of thunder rolled and rocked the floor.

Kathie darted back to us; and in her hand she held a sheathed sword.

So the Sword of Aldones was a real sword, after all; long and gleaming and deadly, and of so fine a temper that it made my own look like a child’s leaden toy. In the hilt, through a thin layer of insulating silk, winking jewels gleamed blue.

It might have been a duplicate of the Sharra sword, but that now seemed an inferior forgery of the glorious thing I held.

This was not a concealment for a hidden matrix; rather it was a matrix. It seemed to have a life of its own. A tingle of power, not unpleasant, flowed up my arm. I gripped the hilt and drew it a little way—

“No,” Callina said warningly, and gripped my hand. A moment, stubborn, I resisted; then slid it back into the sheath.

“That’s that,” I said harshly. “Let’s get out of here.”

Dawn was breaking over the lake when we came out, and the wet sunlight glinted, ominously, on steel. Kathie cried out, in terror, as three men stepped toward us.

Three men? No; two — and a woman. Kadarin, Dyan — and between them, slim and vital as a dark flame, Thyra Scott smiled up at me, her mocking mouth daring me to speak or strike. I caught the dagger from my belt. Thyra stood steady, her naked throat upturned to the steel.

My hand tilted and the knife fell from it.

“Get out of my way, witch!”

Her low, fey laughter raised a million ghosts, but her voice was steel. “What have you done with my daughter?”

“My daughter,” I said. “She’s safe. But you can’t have her.”

Dyan took a step, but Kadarin took his elbow and hauled him back. “Wait, you.”

Thyra said, “We will bargain. Give me what the Keeper holds, and you go free.”

“We will anyhow,” I said.

Kadarin drew his sword. I should have known; it was the one bearing the Sharra matrix. “Will you?” he asked softly. “Better hand it over. I intend to kill you, but you couldn’t give me a fair fight, not now.” His eyes swept, with gentle contempt, from my bandaged head to my feet. “Don’t try.”

“I suppose you have Trailmen in hiding with your usual odds of twenty to one?”

Kadarin nodded. “They won’t touch you. You’re for me. But the women—”

“Go to hell,” I snarled, and, flashing the sword from the sheath, I flung myself at Kadarin. The touch of the hilt poured that stream of overflowing life through me; the blood beat so hard in my temples that I was faint with it. Kadarin whipped up the Sharra sword. The swords-touched—

The Sword of Aldones blazed blue fire! Like a living thing it leaped from my hand and clattered down, coruscating blue fire from hilt to point. The two swords lay crossed on the ground, streams of wild blue flame cascading about them. Kadarin was reeling.

I picked myself up. We stood back, neither daring to approach the fallen blades.

But Kathie darted between us and caught up both swords. To her, I think, they were only swords. She held one in either hand, carefully. The blue flames died.

“That won’t help,” Kadarin said, and added grimly, “Don’t be a self-sacrificing fool. Give me the Sharra matrix and go. We couldn’t take the Sword of Aldones, maybe. But we can take the Sharra one, and we will. You could kill me, kill Dyan, kill Thyra — but you can’t kill them all!”

Of course there was no choice. I had the women to guard. “Give it to him, Kathie,” I said at last. This was only a draw. The real fight would come later.

“Give it up? Now?”

“I’m no hero,” I said savagely, “and you’ve never seen the Trailmen fight.” I took Sharra’s matrix from her hand. Dyan stepped forward, but Kadarin elbowed him away. “Not you!”

It was fortunate we had Kadarin to deal with. When we fought, it would be to death — but it would be fair. “We can go. His word’s good.”

But Thyra flung herself forward, the knife bright in her hand. I twisted, just too late; she drove the knife into my side.

I got my arm up and knocked her hard, stunningly, across the face; then I sat down, hard, my hand to the numb slash. Blood dripped through my fingers. I heard Kadarin cry out like a berserker; dimly saw him shaking Thyra with maniac strength, back and forth, and finally he cast her to the ground, where she lay moaning. She had violated his word.

And then I blacked out.

There was a roaring sound around me. I was lying with my head in Kathie’s lap.

“Lie still. They’re taking us to Thendara in a rocket-car.”

“Keep him quiet, Kathie.”

I reached for Callina’s hand, but it was the cool brittle fingertips of Ashara that were fetters on my wrist, her cold eyes in the grayness. I jolted awake; something had touched my mind. Marja! I reached for her, but where she had been was only an empty, place in the world—

I shook my brain free of delirium for a minute. Of course I could not touch Marja. Not in pain like this. I would not want to let her share this now.