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true name is Rakhal, you know, but my Terrans find that hard to say-old Rakhal Darriell dwelt as a hermit, half mad and all drunk, in his family mansion, which was falling to ruins even then. And now and then, when he was maddened with wine or when the Ghost Wind blew-the kiresetk still grows in some of the far valleys-he would wander crazed hi the forests. He'd tell strange tales, afterward, of women astray in the forests, dancing naked in the winds and taking him to their arms-such a tale as any madman might tell. But a long time ago, a very long time now, old Rakhal, they say, came to Storn Castle bearing a girl-child in his arms, saying he had found her like this, naked hi the snow at his doorway. He told them

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the babe was his child by one of the forest-folk, cast out to die by her kin. So the lady of Storn took her in for, whatever the babe was, human or of the forest-folk, old Rakhal could not rear her. She fostered her with her own daughters. And many years after, when I was married to Lauretta Storn-Lanart, Felicia Darriell, as she was called, came with Lauretta among her ladies and companions. Felicia's oldest child- Thyra there-may well be my daughter. When Lauretta was heavy with child it was Felicia, by her wish, that I took to my bed. Lauretta's first child was stillborn and she took Thyra as a fosterling. I have always treated her as Beltran's sister, although nothing is certain. Later, Felicia married Zeb Scott, and these

two, Rafe and Marguerida, are half-Terran and none of your kin. But Thyra may well be your cousin."

He added, musing, "Old Rakhal's tale may well have been true. Felicia was a strange woman; her eyeswere very strange. I always thought such tales mere drunken babble. Yet, having known Felicia ..." Hewas silent, lost in mem-

ories of time long past. I looked at Marjorie, wondering. I had never believed such tales, either. Yet

those eyes . . .

Kermiac laughed and dismissed me. "Nephew, since your eyes and heart are over there with

Marguerida, take the rest of yourself along over there too!"

Thyra was gazing intently out into the storm; I could feel the questing tendrils of her thought and knewshe was searching, through the gathering darkness, for her lover. Now Thyra, I could well believe, wasnot all human.

But Marjorie? She reached her hands to me and I caught them in one of mine, circled her waist with myfree arm. Beltran said, joining us, "He'll be here soon. What then, Lew?"

"It's your plan," I said, "and Kadarin is certainly enough of a telepath to fit into a circle. You know what we want to do, though there are limits to what can be done with a group this size. There are certainly technologies we can demonstrate. Road-building and surfacing, for instance. It should convince the Terrans we are worth watching. Powered aircraft may be more difficult. There may be records of that at Arilinn. But it won't be fast or easy."

"You still feel I'm not fit to take a place in the matrix circle."

"There's no question of fitness, you're not able. I'm sorry, Beltran. Some powers may develop. But

without a catalyst . . ."

He set his mouth and for a moment he looked ugly. Then he laughed. "Maybe some day we canpersuade the young One at Syrtis to join us, since you say he does not love the Comyn."

There had been no sound I could hear, but Thyra turned from the window and went out of the hall. Afew moments later she came back with Kadarin. He held hi his arms a long, heavily wrapped bundle,waving away the servants who would have taken it.

Kermiac had risen to leave the table; he waited for Kadarin at the edge of the dais while the otherpeople in the hall were leaving. Kadarin said, "I have it, kinsman, and a fine struggle I had with the oldlady, too. Desideria sends you her compliments." He made a wry face. Kermiac said, with a bleak smile, "Aye, Desideria ever had a mind of her own. You didn't have to use strong persuasion?"

There was sarcasm in Kadarin's grin. "You know Lady

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Storn better than I. Do you really think it would have availed much? Fortunately, it was not needed. Ihave small talent for bullying womenfolk."

Kermiac held out his hand to take it, but Kadarin shook his head. "No, I made her a pledge and I mustkeep it, kinsman, to place it only in the hands of the Arilinn telepath and be guided by his judgment."

Kermiac nodded and said, "Her judgment is good; honor your pledge, then, Bob."

Kadarin laid the long bundle on the bench while he began removing his snow-crusted outer wear. I said,

"You look as if you'd been out in the worst weather in the Hellers, Bob. Was it as bad as that?"

He nodded. "I didn't want to linger or be stormbound on the way, carrying this." He nodded at thebundle, accepted the hot drink Marjorie brought him and gulped it thirstily. "Season's coming in early;another bad storm on the way. What have you done while I was away?"

Thyra met his eyes and I felt, like a small palpable shock, the quick touch and link as he came into thecircle. It was easier than long explanations. He set down the empty cup and said, "Well done, children."

"Nothing's done," I said, "only begun."

Thyra knelt and began to unfasten the knots in the long bundle. Kadarin caught her wrist. "No," he said,

"I made a pledge. Take it, Lew."

"We know," said Thyra, "we heard you." She sounded impatient.

"Then will you set my word at nothing, wild-bird?" His hand holding hers motionless was large, brown, heavy-knuckled. Like the Ardais and the Aillards, he had six fingers on his hand. I could easily believe nonhuman blood there, too. Thyra smiled at him and he drew her against him, saying, "Lew, it's for you to take this."

I knelt beside the bundle and began to unfasten the heavy wrappings. It was longer than my arm andnarrow, and had been bundled into layer on layer of heavy canvas cloth, the layers bound and knottedwith embroidered straps, Marjorie and Beltran came to look over my shoulder as I struggled with theknots. Inside the last layer of heavy canvas was a layer of raw colorless silk, like the insulation of amatrix. When I finally got it unrolled, I saw that it was a ceremonial or ornamental sword, forged of puresilver. An atavistic lit-

tle prickle went down to the ends of my spine. I had never set eyes on this before. But I knew what it

was.

My hands almost refused to take it, despite the thing of beauty the forge-folk had made to cover andguard it. Then I forced myself back to sanity. Was I as superstitious as Thyra thought me? I took the hiltin my hand, sensing the pulsing life within. I seized the sword hi both hands and gave the hilt a hard twist.

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It came off in my hand. Inside lay the matrix itself, a great blue stone, with an inner glimmer curling fireswhich, trained as I was, made my head reel and my vision blur.

I heard Thyra gasp aloud. Beltran had quickly turned away. If it made me, after three seasons in Aritinn,fight for control, I could imagine what it had done to him. I quickly wadded it up in the silk, then took itgingerly between my fingers. I was immensely reluctant to look, even for a moment, into those endlesslylive depths. Finally I bent my eyes to it. Space wrenched, tore at me. For a moment I felt myself falling,saw the face of a young girl shrouded in flame, crimson and orange and scarlet. It was a face I knewsomehow-De-sideria! The old woman I had seen in Karadin's mind! Then the face shifted, shrouded,was no more a woman but a looming, towering form of fire, a woman's form, chained in gold, rising,flaming, striking, walls crumbling like dust. . ..

I wrapped it in the silk again and said, "Do you know what this is?"

Kadarin said, "It was used of old by the forge-folk to bring metals from the deeps of the ground, to theirfires."

"I'm not so sure," I said. "Some of the Sharra matrices were used that way. Others were . . . less

innocent. I'm not sure this is a monitored matrix."

"All the better. We want no Comyn eyes spying on what we do."

"But that means it's essentially uncontrollable," I said. "A monitored matrix has a safety factor: if it gets out of hand the monitor takes over and breaks the circle. Which is why I still have a right hand." I held out the ugly scar. He flinched slightly and said, "Are you afraid?"

"Of this happening again? No, I know what precautions to take. But of this matrix? Yes, I am."

"You Comyn are superstitious cowards! All my life I've heard about the powers of the Arilinn-trained

telepaths and mechanics. Now you are afraid-"

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Anger surged through me. Comyn, was I? And cowardly? It seemed that the anger pulsed, beat withinme, surging up my arm from the matrix in my fist. I thrust it back into the sword, sealing it there. Thyrasaid, "Nothing's gained by calling names. Lew, can this be used for what Beltran has hi mindr

I found I had an incomprehensible desire to take the sword in my hand again. The matrix seemed to callme, demanding that I take it out, master it.... It was almost a sensual hunger. Could it really bedangerous, then? I put the canvas wrappings around it and gave Thyra's question some thought.

Finally I said, "Given a fully trained circle, one I can trust, yes, probably. A tower circle is usually sevenor eight mechanics and a Keeper, and we seldom handle more than fourth- or fifth-level matrices. I knowthis one is stronger than that. And we have no trained Keeper."

*Thyra can do that work," Kadarin said.

I considered it for a moment. She had, after all, drawn us all around her, taking the central position with

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swift precision. But finally I shook my head.

"I won't risk it. She's worked wild too long. She's self-taught and her training could come apart under stress." I thought of the prowling beast I bad sensed when the circle formed. I felt Thyra's eyes on me and was painfully embarrassed, but I had been disciplined to rigid honesty within a circle. You can't hide from one another, it's disaster to try.

"I can control her," Kadarin said.

"I'm sorry, Bob. That's no answer. She herself must be in control or she'll be killed, and it's not a nice way to die. I could control her myself, but the essence of a Keeper is that she does the controlling. I trust her powers, Bob, but not her judgment under stress. If I'm to work with her, I must trust her implicitly. And I can't Not as Keeper. I think Marjorie can do it-if she will."

Kadarin was regarding Marjorie with a curious wry smile. He said, "You're rationalizing. Do you think Idon't know you're in love with her, and want her to have this post of honor?"

"You're mad," I said. "Damn it, yes, I'm in love with her! But it's clear you know nothing about matrix circles. Do you think I want her to be Keeper in this circle? Don't you know that will make it impossible for me to touch her? As long as she's a functioning Keeper, none of us may touch her, and I

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least of all, because I love her and want her. Didn't you know that?" I drew my fingers slowly away from

Marjorie's. My hand felt cold and alone.

"Comyn superstition," Beltran said scornfully, "driveling nonsense about virgins and purity! Do you really

believe all that rubbish?"

"Belief has nothing to do with it," I said, "and no, Keepers don't have to be sheltered virgins in this day and age. But while they're working in the circles they stay strictly chaste. That's a physical fact. It has to do with nerve currents. It's no more superstition than what every midwife knows, that a pregnant woman must not ride too fast or hard, nor wear tight lacing in her dresses. And even so, it's dangerous. Terribly dangerous. If you think I want Marjorie to be our Keeper, you are more ignorant than I thought!"

Kadarin looked at me steadily, and I saw that he was weighing what be said. "I believe you," he said atlast. "But you believe Marjorie can do it?"

I nodded, wishing I could lie and be done with it. A tele-path's love life is always infernally complicated.

And Marjorie and I had just found each other. We had had so very little, so very little. . . .

"She can, if she will," I said at last, "but she must consent. No woman can be made Keeper unwilling. It

is too strong a weight to carry, except by free will."

Kadarin looked at us both then and said, "So it all hangs on Mariorie, then. What about it, Margie? Willyou be Keeper for us?1*

She looked at me and, biting her lip, she stretched out her hands to mine. She said, "Lew, I don't know

..."

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She was afraid, and small wonder. And then, like a compelling, magical dream, I remembered themorning when we had walked together through Caer Donn and shared our dreams for this world. Wasn'tthis worth a little danger, a little waiting for our happiness? A world where we need not feel shame butpride for our dual heritage, Darkovan and Terran? I felt Marjorie catch the dream, too, as without aword, she slowly loosed her hand from mine and we drew apart. From this moment until our work wasended and the circle dissolved, Marjorie would stand inviolate, set apart, alone. The Keeper.