The Apogian War

Chapter 52

He'd heard of it. of course, born into a Dover family: a physical and psychic upheaval of awakening telepaths in adolescence, the inability of the brain to cope with sudden overloads of sensory and extrasensory data, resulting in per ceptual distortions of sight, sound, touch... "I never had it before. I didn't know what it was. Things seemed to thin out and disappear, I couldn't see properly, or feel..." "I know. Get up now and walk around a little." The room was still tilting around him; he clung to the bed frame. "If 1 da, I'll fall... "And if you don't, your balance centers will start drifting out of focus again. Here," she said with a faint laugh, tossing the white shawl to him, looking courteously away as he wrapped it around his body and struggled to his feet. "Darkovan, did no one warn you of this when your 'chosen' awakened?" " "Didn't who warn me? I don't think anyone knew," he said, taking a hesitant step and then another. She was right; under the concentrated effort of getting up and moving, the room settled into solidity again. He shuddered and went toward the candle. The little lights still danced and jiggled behind his eyes, but it was candle-sized again. How had it grown to a raging forest fire out of childhood? He picked it up, was amazed to see how his hand shook. Jane said sharply, "Don't touch the candle when your hand's not steady, you'll set something afirel Darkovan, you frightened me!" "With the candle?" He set it down. "No, the way you were moaning. I spent half a year at Neskaya when I was thirteen, I saw one of the girls go into convulsions in crisis once." Darkovans looked at his sister as if for the first time. He could sense, now, the emotion behind her cross, brisk manner, real fear, a tenderness he had never guessed. He put his arm around her shoulders and said, won deringly, "Were you really afraid?" The barriers were wholly down be tween them and what she heard was, Would you really care if some thing happened to me? She reacted to the wondering amazement of that unspoken question with real dismay.

"How can you doubt it? You are my only kinaman "You have Gabriel, and five children." "But you are my father's son and my mother's," she said, giving him a short, hard hug. "You seem to be all right now. Get back into that bed before you take a chill and I must nurse you like one of the b bies!" But he knew now what the sharpness of her voice concealed and did not trouble him. Obediently he got under the covers. She sat on the bed. "You should spend some time in one of the towers, Darkovan, font to learn control. Grandfather can send you to Neskaya or Aril. An un trained telepath is a menace to himself and everyone around him, they told me so when I was your age." thought warn him? Darkovan thought of Dan. Had anyone Jane drew the covers up under his chin. He recalled now that the had done this when he was very small, before he knew the difference between elder sister and a never-known mother. She was only a child herself, but she had tried to mother him. Why had he forgotten that? She kissed him gently on the forehead and Darkovan, feeling safe and protected for the moment, toppled over the edge of a vast gulf of sleep. The next day he felt ill and dazed, but although Jane told him to to keep to his bed, he was too restless to stay there. "I must return at once, at once to Thendara," he insisted. "Tve learned something which makes it necessary to talk to Grandfather. You said, yourself, I should arrange to go to one of the towers. What can happen to me with three Guardsmen for escort?" "You know perfectly well you're not able to travel! I should s***k you and put you to bed as I'd do with Rafael if he were so unrea sonable," she said crossly. His new insight into her made him speak with gentleness. "I'd like to be young enough for your cosseting, sister, even if it meant a s******g. But I know what I must do, Jane, and I've outgrown a woman's rule. Please don't treat me like a child." seriousness sobered her, too. Still unwilling, she sent for his es cort and horses. All that long day's ride, he seemed to move through torturing memo ries, repeating themselves over and over, and a growing unease and un certainty: would they believe him, would they even listen? Dan was out of Cyan's reach, now; there was time enough to speak if he endan gered another. Yet Darkovanknew that if he was silent, he connived at what Cyan had done.

v