The Apogian War

Chapter 63

done this when he was very little. She walked back and forth, back and forth, along the high-arched hall with the blue windows, singing to him in her husky low voice... . He shook his head to clear it of the illn sion. She still sat with her head bent over the matrix, an adult again, but her touch was still on him, close, protective, sheltering. For a mo ment he felt that he would cry and cling to her as he had done then. Javanne said gently, "Look into the matrix. Don't be afraid, this one isn't keyed to anyone else; mine hurt you because you're out of phase with it. Look into it, bend your thoughts on it, don't move until you see the lights waken inside it... He tried deliberately to relax; he realized that he was tensing every muscle against remembered pain. He finally looked into the pale jewel, feeling only a tiny shock of awareness, but something inside the jewel glimmered tly. He bent his thoughts on it, reached out, reached out ..deep, deep inside. Something stirred, trembled, flared into a living spark. Then it was as if he had blown his breath on a coal from the fire place: the spark was brilliant blue fire, moving, pulsing with the very rhythm of his blood. Excitement crawled in him, an almost s****l thrill. ** "Enough!" Javanne said. "Look away quickly or you'll be trapped!" No, not yet.... Reluctantly, he wrenched his eyes from the stone. She said, "Start slowly. Look into it only a few minutes at a time until you can master it or it will master you. The most important lesson is that you must always control it, never let it control you." He gave it a last glance, wrapped it again with a sense of curious regret, feeling Javanne's protective touch/embrace withdraw. She said, "You can do with it what you will, but that is not much, untrained. Be careful. You are not yet immune to threshold sickness and it may re turn. Can a few days matter so much? Neskaya is only a little more than a day's ride away." "I don't know how to explain, but I feel that every moment matters. I'm afraid Javanne, afraid for Danilo, afraid for all of us. I must go now, tonight. Can you find me some old riding-clothes of Gabriel's, Javanne? These will attract too much attention in the mountains. And will you have your women make me some food for a few days? I want to avoid towns nearby where I might be recognized." "I'll do it myself; no need for the women to see and gossip." She left him to his neglected supper while she went to find the clothing. He did not feel hungry, but dutifully stowed away a slice of roast fowl and some bread. When she came back, she had his saddlebags, and an old suit of Gabriel's. She left him by the fire to put them on, then hethat lowed her down the hall to a deserted kitchen. The servants were long gone to bed. She moved around, making up a package of dried meat, hard bread and crackers, dried fruit. She put a small cooking-kit into the saddlebags, saying it was one which Gabriel carried on hunting trips. He watched her silently, feeling closer to this little-known sister than he had felt since he was six years old and she left their home to marry. He wished he were still young enough to cling to her skirts as he had then. An ice-cold fear gripped at him, and then the thought: before going into danger, a Comyn heir must himself leave an heir. He had re fused even to think of it, as Dyan had refused, not wanting to be merely a link in a chain, the son of his father, the father of his sons. Something inside him rebelled, deeply and strongly, at what he must do. Why bother? If he did not return, it would all be the same, one of Javanne's sons named his heir... . He could do nothing, say nothing.... He sighed. It was too late for that, he had gone too far. He said, "One thing more, sister. I go where I may never return. You know what that means. You must give me one of your sons, Javanne, for my heir." Her face blanched and she gave a low, stricken cry. He felt the pain in it but he did not look away, and finally she said, her voice wavering, "Is there no other way?" He tried to make it a feeble joke. "I have no time to get one in the usual way, sister, even if I could find some woman to help me at such short notice." Her laughter was almost hysterical; it cut off in the middle, leaving stark silence. He saw slow acceptance dawning in her eyes. He had known she would agree. She was Hastur, of a family older than royalty. She had of necessity married beneath her, since there was no equal, and she had come to love her husband deeply, but her duty to the Hasturs came first. She only said, her voice no more than a threat, "What shall I say to Gabriel?" "He has known since the day he took you to wife that this day might come," Regis said. "I might well have died before coming to man hood." "Come, then, and choose for yourself." She led the way to the room where her three sons slept in cots side by side. By the candlelight Regis studied their faces, one by one. Rafael, slight and dark, close-cropped curls tousled around his face; Gabriel, sturdy and swarthy and already taller than his brother. Mikhail, who was four, was still pixie-small, fairer than the others, his rosy cheeks framed in light waving locks, al most silvery white. Grandfather must have looked like that Regis thought. He felt curiously cold and bereft. Javanne had given their clan three sons and two daughters. He might never father a son of his own. He shivered at the implications of what he was doing, bent his head, groping through an unaccustomed prayer. "Cassilda, blessed Mother of the Domains, help me choose wisely.. He moved quietly from cot to cot. Rafael was most like him, he thought. Then, on some irresistible impulse, he bent over Mikhail, lifted the small sleeping form in his arms. "This is my son, Javanne." She nodded, but her eyes were fierce. "And if you do not return he will be Hastur of Hastur, but if you do return, what then? A poor rela tion at the footstool of Hastur?" Regis said quietly, "If I do not return, he will be nedestro, sister. I will not pledge you never to take a wife, even in return for this great gift. But this I swear to you: he shall come second only to my first legit imately born son. My second son shall be third to him, and I will take cath no other nedestro heir shall ever displace him. Will this content you, breda" Mikhail opened his eyes and stared about him sleepily, but he saw his mother and did not cry. Javanne touched the blond head gently. "It will content me, brother." Holding the child awkwardly in unpracticed arms, Regis carried him out of the room where his brothers slept. "Bring witnesses," he said, "I must be gone soon. You know this is irrevocable, Javanne, that once I take this oath, he is not yours but mine, and must be sealed my heir. You must send him to Grandfather at Thendara." She nodded. Her throat moved as she swallowed hard, but she did not protest. "Go down to the chapel," she said. "I will bring witnesses." It was an old room in the depths of the house, the four old god-forms painted crudely on the walls, lights burning before them. Regis held Mikhail on his lap, letting the child sleepily twist a button on his tunic, until the witnesses came, four old men and two old women of the household. One of the women had been Javanne's nurse in childhood, and his own. He took his place solemnly at the altar, Mikhail in his arms. "I swear before Aldones, Lord of Light and my divine forefather, that Hastur of Hasturs is this child by unbroken blood line, known to me in true descent. And in default of any heir of my body, therefore do I, Regis-Rafael Felix Alar Hastur y Elhalyn, choose and name him my nedestro heir and swear that none save my first-born son in true mar riage shall ever displace him as my heir; and that so long as I live, none all challenge hight to my hearth, my home or my heritage. Thus 1 take this the pence of wis known to both. I deciate the my son shall be on mont called Mabal Regie Lamart Hator, bot-He which would the stal. There was no time to search the foll for sms of hone. He would commemorate then, the desperate need He shall be called Danilo Lanart Hantar, and I will so maintain to all me vle I, sor in my name by any of the bein of my body." He best and kissed his son on the soft baby lips. It was done. They had a sange beginning He wondered what the end would be. He turned his Foter mother, 1 place you in charge of my son. When the mads are ade, you must take him to the Lord Hastur at Thendara, and see to it that he is gom the Sign of Comyn." Jame was doping slow tears, but she said nothing except, "Let me kim him on mose," and allowed the old woman to carry the child wwwy. Regis followed them with his eyes. His son. It was a strange feel ing He wondered if he had laran or the unknown Hastur gift, he won dered if he would ever know, would ever see the child again. 7 must go," he said to his sister. "Send for my horse and someone to en the gates without noise." As they waited together in the gateway, he wid, "If I do not return "Tyk so Moment" she said quickly. Tasne, do you have the Hastur gift 16 sot know," she said. "None knows till it is wakened by one who holds it. We had always thought that you had no laran.... He solded grimly. He had grown up with that, and even now it was too womes wound to touch. She said, "A day will come when you must go to Grandfather, who holds it to walken in his heir, and ask for the gift. Then, and only then, you will know what it is. I do not know myself," she said. "Only if you had died before you were declared a man, or before you had fathered a son, it would have been wakened in me so that, before my own death, I might pass it to one of my sons." And so it might pass, still. He heard the soft clop-clop-clop of hooves in the dark. He prepared to mount, turned back a moment and took Javanne briefly in his arms. She was crying. He blinked tears from his own eyes. He whispered, "Be good to my son, darling." What more could he say? She kissed him quickly in the dark and said, "Say you'll come back, brother. Don't say anything else." Without waiting for another word, she wrenched herself free of him and ran back into the dark house. The gates of Edelweiss swung shut behind him. Regis was alone. The night was dark, fog-shrouded. He fastened his cloak about his throat, touching the small pouch where the matrix lay. Even through the insu lation he could feel it, though no other could have, a small live thing. throbbing,... He was alone with it, under the small hom of moon lowering behind the distant hills. Soon even that small light would be gone. He braced himself, murmured to his horse, straightened his back and rode away northward, on the first step of his unknown journey.