The Apogian War

Chapter 51

What sickened Darkovan was the kind and type of pressure used against Dan, the deliberate, s******c cruelty of it, the particularly subtle ro venge Cyan had taken for the wound to his pride. Petty harassment would have been croel but understandable. But to e chosen against him! To force himself on Dan's mind, to torment him that way! Regis felt physically ill with disgunst. Besides, he thought, still tossing restlently, there were enough men or young lads who would have welcomed Cyan's interest. Some, perhaps, only because Cyan was a Dover lord, rich and able to give presents and privileges to his friends, but others, certainly, would find Cyan a charming, pleasing and sophisticated companion. He could have had a doren minions or lovers and no one would have thought of criticizing him. But some perverse cruelty made him seek the one boy in the ca dets who would have none of him. A cristoforo. He turned on his side, thrust a pillow over his face to shut out the light of the single candle he was too weary to get up and extinguish, and tried to sleep. But his mind kept going back to the frightening, dis turbingly s****l nightmares which had preceded the wakening of his own laran. He knew now how Cyan had pursued Dan even in sleep, enjoying the boy's fright and shame. And he knew now the ultimate corruption of power: to make another person a toy to do your will. Was Cyan mad, then? Darkovan considered. No, he was very sane, to choose a poor boy, one without powerful friends or patrons. He played with Dani as a cat plays with a captive bird, torturing where he could not kill. Regis felt sick again. Pleasure in pain. Did it give Cyan that kind of pleasure to batter him black and blue at swordplay? With the vivid tactile memory of a telepath he relived that moment when Cyan had run his hands over his bruised body, the deliberate sensual quality of the touch. He felt physically used, contaminated, shamed. If Cyan had been physically present then, Darkovan would have struck him and dared the consequences himself. And Dani was a catalyst telepath. That terrible force, that loathsome compulsion, against the rarest and most sensitive of telepaths! Again and again, compulsively, he returned to that night in the bar racks when he had tried-and failed-to reach out to Dan and com fort him. He felt again and again the pain, the physical and mental shock of that wild rejection, the flood of guilt, terror, shame which had flooded him from that brief and innocent touch on Dan's bare shoul der. Cassilda, blessed Mother of the Dover! Darkovan thought in scalding shame, I touched him! Is it any wonder he thought me no better than Cyan! He turned over on his back and lay staring at the vaulted ceiling, feeling his body je over with dread Dyon wamber of Cound. They muld not a compt that they would know what Cyan had d and nothing But who could tell them The angle candle near his bed wevend, ficked in and out of fo con loped and spun acos his visual field and the room wled up wemlel and shank until it seemed to lie far away, then loo mously around him in great echoing space He mergnized the feeling from when Lno gve him kirian, but he was not drugged now! He clutched at the bedclothes, squeezing his eyes shut. He could still see the candleflame, a dark fire printed inside his eyelids, the soom around him lit with blazing brilliance, reversed afterimages, dark to bright and bright to dark, and a roaring in his ears like the distant mas ing of a forest fire... ..The fire lines at Armiday! For an instant it seemed that he saw Lew's face again, crimson, gazing into a great fire, drawn with tersor and wonder, then the face of a woman, shining, ecstatic, crowned with fire, burning, burning alive in the flames... Sharra, golden chained Forge Goddess. The room was alive with the fire and he barrowed be neath the blankets, sunk, battered, swirled. The room was dissolving around him, tilting... every thread in the smooth fine linen of the blankets seemed to cut into him, hard and rough, the twisted fibers of blanket trying to curl and frizzle and dig painfully into his skin, like cutting edges. He heard someone moan aloud and wondered who was there moaning and crying like that. The very air seemed to separate it self and come apart against his skin as if he had to sort it out into little droplets before he could breathe. His own breath hissed and whistled and moaned as it went in and out, like searing fire, to be quenched by the separate droplets of water in his lungs..... Pain crashed through his head. He felt his skull smashing, shattering into little splinters; another blow sent him flying high, falling into dark ness. "Darkovan!" Again the crashing, reeling sickness of the blow and the long spin into space. The sound was only meaningless vibration but he tried to focus on it, make it mean something. "Darkovan!" Who was Darkovan? The roaring candleflame died to a glimmer and Darkovan heard himself gasp aloud. Someone was standing over him, calling his name, slapping him hard and repeatedly. Suddenly, noiselessly, the room fell into focus. 'Darkovan, wake up! Get up and walk around, don't drift with it!" "Jane..." he said, struggling fuzzily upright to catch her hand as it was descending for another blow. "Don't, sister..."

He was sorprised at how weak and faraway his voice sounded. She ve a faint cry of relief. She was standing beside his bod, a white shawt ping from ber shoulders above her long nightgown, "I thought one of the children cried out, then heard you. Why didn't you tell me you were likely to have threshold sickness?"

Darkovan blinked and dropped her hand. Even without the touch he could feel her fear. The room was still not quite solid around him. Threshold sickness?" He thought about it a moment.b