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Damn the old man! Was there no friend, no kinswoman, he could send to welcome Regis home?

Father came to the fire. He was limping badly. He looked at Marius' riding companion and said, "Danilo, I had your tilings sent directly to the cadet barracks. Shall I send a man to show you the way, or do youthink you can find it?"

"There's no need to send anyone, Lord Alton." Danilo Syr-rJs came away from the fire and bowed courteously. He was a slender, bright-eyed boy of fourteen or so, wearing shabby garments which I vaguely recognized as once having been my brother's or mine, long outgrown. That was like Father; he'd make sure that any protege" of his started with the proper outfit for a cadet. Father laid a hand on his shoulder. "You're sure? Well, then, run along, my lad, and good luck go with you."

Danilo, with a polite formula murmured vaguely at all of us, withdrew. Dyan Ardais, warming his handsat the fire, looked after him, eyebrows lifted. "Nice looking youngster. Another of your nedestro sons, Kennard?"

"Dani? Zandru's hells, nol I'd be proud enough to claim him, but truly he's none of mine. The family has Comyn blood, a few generations back, but they're poor as miser's mice; old Dom Felix couldn't give him a good start in life, so I got him a cadet commission."

Regis turned away from the fire and said, "Danilo! I knew I should have recognized him; he was at themonastery one year. I truly couldn't remember his name, Uncle. I should have greeted him!"

The word he used for uncle was the casta term slightly more intimate than kinsman'. I knew he had beenspeaking to my father, but Dyan chose to take it as addressed to himself. "You'll see him in the cadets,

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surely. And I havent greeted you properly, either." He came and took Regis in a kinsman's

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embrace, pressing his cheek, to which Regis submitted, a little flustered; then, holding him at arm's

length, Dyan looked closely at him. "Does your sister hate you for being the beauty of the family, Regis?"

Regis looked startled and a little embarrassed. He said, laughing nervously, "Not that she ever told me. Isuspect Javanne thinks I should be running around hi a pinafore."

"Which proves what I have always said, that women are no judge of beauty.*' My father gave him a

black scowl and said, "Damn it, Dyan, dont tease him."

Dyan would have said more-damn the man, was he starting that again, after all the trouble last year-but aservant in Hastur livery came in quickly and said, "Lord Alton, a message from the Regent"*

Father tore the letter open, began to swear volubly hi three languages. He told the messenger to waitwhfle he got into some dry clothes, disappeared into his room, and then I heard him shouting to Andres. Soon he came out, tucking a dry shirt into dry breeches, and scowling angrily.

"Father, what is itr

"The usual," he said grimly, "trouble in the city. Hastur's summoned every available Council elder and

sending two extra patrols. Evidently a crisis of some sort"

Damn, I thought. After the long ride from Armida and a soaking, to call him out at night . . . "Will youneed me, Father?"

He shook his head. MNo. Not necessary, son. Dont wait up, 111 probably be out all night." As he wentout, Dyan said, "I expect a similar summons awaits me hi my own rooms; I had better go and find out. Good night, lads. I envy you your good night's sleep." He added, with a nod to Regis, "These others willnever appreciate a proper bed. Only we who have slept on stone know how to do that" He managed tomake a deep formal bow to Regis and simultaneously ignore me completely-it wasn't easy when we werestanding side by side-and went away.

I looked around to see what remained to be settled. I sent Marius to change out of his drenchedclothes-too old for a nanny and too young for an aide-de-camp, he's left to me much of the time. Then Iarranged to have a room made ready for Regis. "Have you a man to dress you, Regis? Or shall I havefather's body-servant wait on you tonight?"

*'I learned to look after myself at Nevarsin," Regis said.

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He looked warmer now, less tense. "If the Regent is sending for all the Council, I suspect it's reallyserious and not just that Grandfather has forgotten me again. That makes me feel better."

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Now I was free to get out of my own wet things. "When you've changed, Regis, we'll have dinner here infront of the fire. I'm not officially on duty till tomorrow morning."

I went and changed quickly into indoor clothing, slid my feet into fur-lined ankle-boots and lookedbriefly hi on Marius; I found 'him sitting up in bed, eating hot soup and already half asleep. It was a longride for a boy his age. I wondered again why Father had subjected him to it

The servants had set up a hot meal before the fire, hi front of the old stone seats there. The lights in ourpart of the castle are the old ones, luminous rock from deep caves which charge with light all day andgive off a soft glow all night Not enough for reading or fine needlework, but plenty for a quiet meal and acomfortable talk by firelight. Regis came back, in dry garments and indoor boots, and I gestured the oldsteward away. "Go and get your own supper; Lord Regis and I can wait on ourselves."

I took the covers off the dishes. They had sent hi a fried fowl and some vegetable stew. I helped him,saying, "Not very festive, but probably the best they could do at short notice."

"It's better than we got on the fire-lines,*1 Regis said and I grinned. "So you remember that too?"

"How could I forget it? Armida was like home to me. Does Kennard still break his own horses, Lew?"

"No, he's far too lame," I said, and wondered again how Father would manage hi the coming season. Selfishly, I hoped he would be able to continue in command. It's hereditary to the Altons, and I was next hi line for it. They had learned to tolerate me as his deputy, holding captain*s rank. As commander, I'd have all those battles to fight again.

We talked for a little while about Armida, about horses and hawks, while Regis finished the stew in hisbowl. He picked up an apple and went to the fireplace, where a pair of antique swords, used only in thesword-dance now, hung over the mantel. He touched the hilt of one and I asked, "Have you forgotten allyour fencing hi the monastery, Regis?"

"No, there were some of us who weren't to be monks, so

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Father Master gave us leave to practice an hour every day, and an arms-master came to give uslessons."

Over wine we discussed the state of the roads from Nevar-sin.

"Surely you didn't ride in one day from the monastery?"

**Oh, no. I broke my journey at Edelweiss."

That was on Alton lands. When Javanne Hastur married Gabriel Lanart, ten years ago, my father hadleased them the estate. "Your sister is well, I hope?"

"Well enough, but extremely pregnant just now," Regis said, "and Javanne's done a ridiculous thing. It made sense to call their first son Rafael, after her father and mine. And the second, of course, is the younger Gabriel. But when she named the third MikhaiL, she made the whole thing absurd. I believe

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she's praying frantically for a girl this time!"

I laughed. By all accounts the "Lanart angels" should be named for the archfiends, not the archangels;and why should a Hastur seek names from cristoforo mythology? "Well, she and Gabriel have sonsenough."

"True. I am sure my grandfather is annoyed that she should have so many sons, and cannot give them Domain-right hi Hastur. And I should have told Kennard; her husband will be here in a few days to take his place hi the Guard. He would have ridden with me, but with Javanne so near to her time, he got leave to remain with her till she is delivered."

I nodded; of course he would stay. Gabriel Lanart was a minor noble of the Alton Domain, a kinsman ofour own, and a telepath. Of course he would follow the custom of the Domains, that a man shares withhis child's mother the ordeal of birth, staying in rapport with her until the child is born and all is well. Well,we could spare him for a few days. A good man, Gabriel.

"Dyan seemed to take it for granted that you would be in the cadets this year," I said.

"I don't know if I'll have a choice. Did you?"

I hadn't, of course. But that the heir to Hastur, of all people, should question it-that made me uneasy.

Regis sat on the stone bench, restlessly scuffing his felt ankle-boots on the floor, "Lew, you're part

Terran and yet you're Comyn. Do you feel as if you belonged to us? Or to the Terrans?"

A disturbing question, an outrageous, question, and one I

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had never dared ask myself. I felt angry at him for speaking it, as if taunting me with what I was. Here I was an alien; among the Terrans, a freak, a mutant, a telepath. I said at last, bitterly, "I've never belonged anywhere. Except, perhaps, at Arilinn."

Regis raised his face, and I was startled at the sudden anguish there. "Lew, what does it feel like to havelarariT"

I stared at him, disconcerted. The question touched off another memory. That summer at Armida, in histwelfth year. Because of his age, and because there was no one else, it had fallen to me to answer certainquestions usually left to fathers or elder brothers, to instruct him in certain facts proper to adolescents. Hebad blurted those questions out, too, with the same kind of half-embarrassed urgency, and I'd found itjust as difficult to answer them. There are some things it's almost impossible to discuss with someone whohasn't shared the experience. I said at last, slowly, "I hardly know how to answer. IVe had it so long, itwould be harder to imagine what it feels like not to have laran."

"Were you born with it, then?"

"No, no, of course not. But when I was ten, or eleven, I began to be aware of what people were feeling. Or thinking. Later my father found out-proved to them-that I had the Alton gift, and that's rare even-" I set my teeth and said it, **even in legitimate sons. After that, they couldn't deny me Comyn rights."

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"Does it always come so early? Ten, eleven?**

"Have you never been tested? I was almost certain ..." I felt a little confused. At least once during the shared fears of that last season together, on the fire-lines, I had touched his mind, sensed that he had the gift of our caste. But he had been very young then. And the Alton gift is forced rapport, even with non-telepaths.

"Once," said Regis, "about three years ago. The leronis said I had the potential, as far as she could tell,

but she could not reach it."

I wondered if that was why the Regent had sent him to Nevarsin: either hoping that discipline, silenceand isolation would develop his laran, which sometimes happened, or trying to conceal hisdisappointment in his heir.

"You're a licensed matrix mechanic, aren't you, Lew? What's that like?"

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This I could answer. "You know what a matrix is: a jewel stone that amplifies the resonances of the brainand transmutes psi power into energy. For handling major forces, it demands a group of linked minds,usually hi a tower circle."

"I know what a matrix is," he said. "They gave me one when I was tested." He showed it to me, hung, as most of us carried them, in a small silk-lined leather bag about his neck. "I've never used it, or even looked at H again. In the old days, I know, they made these mind-links through the Keepers. They don't have Keepers any more, do they?"

"Not hi the old sense," I said, "although the woman who works centerpolar in the matrix circles is still called a Keeper. In my father's time they discovered that a Keeper could function, except at the very highest levels, without all the old taboos and terrible training, the sacrifice, isolation, special cloistering. His foster-sister Cleindori was the first to break the tradition, and they don't train Keepers in the old way any more. It's too difficult and dangerous, and it's not fair to ask anyone to give up their whole lives to it any more. Now everyone spends three years or less at Arilinn, and then spends the same amount of time outside, so that they can learn to live normal lives." I was silent, thinking of my circle at Arilinn, now scattered to their homes and estates. I had been happy there, useful, accepted. Competent. Some day I would go back to this work again, in the relays.

"What it's like," I continued, "it's-it's intimate. You're completely open to the members of your circle. Your thoughts, your very feelings affect them, and you're wholly vulnerable to theirs. It's more than the closeness of blood kin. It's not exactly love. It's not sexual desire. It's like-like living with your skin off. Twice as tender to everything. It's not like anything else."

His eyes were rapt. I said harshly, "Dont romanticize it. It can be wonderful, yes. But it can be sheer hell.

Or both at once. You learn to keep your distance, just to survive."

Through the haze of his feelings I could pick up just a fraction of his thoughts. I was trying to keep myawareness of him as low as possible. He was, damn it, too vulnerable. He was feeling forgotten, rejected,alone. I couldn't help picking it up. But a boy his age would think it prying.