The Alton Gift (32 page)

Domenic did not draw an easy breath until they were within sight of the Castle. Although Lew made no complaint, ever since he had faced the crowd at the tent city, his face had gone ashen. Shivering, he clung to the pommel of his saddle with his good hand. Illona glanced at him, looking worried.

The walls of the city closed around them; the streets were filled with people, wagons, laden pack animals. Domenic had forgotten how noisy Thendara was, how dirty and smelly, how narrow the spaces, cutting off the horizon. He could hardly sense the bedrock beneath the encrustation of wood and stone.

The captain did a superb job parting the traffic to speed their way through the city. In the Castle courtyard, grooms rushed to take their horses. Servants began unloading their baggage. Marguerida burst through the main doors, skirts flying as she raced toward them. She wore a gown of plain, undyed wool, the sort of comfortable clothing she liked to wear for writing music.

"Oh my dears, you are here at last!" She swept Domenic into her

arms. "It's so good to have you back again! How you have been missed!"

Illona, who had drawn herself up, her expression almost inhumanly composed, inclined her head and said, "It is a pleasure to see you again,
Domna
Marguerida."

"Goodness, you've grown up," Marguerida said. "You're under-Keeper at Nevarsin now, I understand."

"Mother, what's been going on?" Domenic said. "We just passed through an encampment of very angry men outside the city gates."

Marguerida's mouth tightened. "The shanty town has ballooned over the last tenday. More people come all the time, and we haven't the facilities for them inside the city. So far, there's been no violence, but someone keeps stirring them up—"

"Your pardon,
Domna"
Illona cut in, looking at Lew with an expression of concern. "This is not the time to discuss such matters,"

"What am I thinking, to keep you all out here?" Marguerida slipped one hand through her father's elbow and held out the other to Domenic. Her golden eyes swept across her father's drawn face. "You look exhausted. Once you're settled and rested, we can talk."

"I must attend to
Dom
Lewis first," Illona said. "Where may I monitor him?"

Lew's face hardened. "It will pass. I have ridden through worse pain."

"Pain?" Marguerida looked aghast. "Father, are you hurt? Ill? Why did you not say so at once?"

At the same instant, Illona drew herself up, and her voice rang with authority. "
Dom
Lewis, we warned you that these episodes of chest pain might herald an even more serious condition."

"Enough!" Lew silenced them all. Domenic remembered the stories of Lew's own father, the formidable Kennard Alton. "It is nothing, I tell you, but if it will stop this chatter, then I will submit to Illona's examination and have done with it. We have enough cause for concern as it is."

Domenic's room in the Alton family quarters closed around him like the walls of a prison. The bed with its carved headboard, the chest of

inlaid blackwood and matching dresser, even the chair in which, as a boy, he had sat daydreaming for so many hours, were all as he had left them. Yet he felt as if he had returned to someone else's room, to someone else's life.

One of the Alton body-servants took his cloak and helped remove his riding boots. Once he had bathed, shaved, and dressed in clean indoor clothing, his mood lifted slightly.

On his small writing desk, he found a stack of papers his mother had left for him. Sighing, he picked up the top sheet. It was, not surprisingly, an agenda for the first Council session.

He looked up at the sound of footsteps and voices in the corridor outside. The door swung open and Alanna entered, carrying a tray of covered dishes. Her hair, braided and coiled elegantly on her neck, gleamed like polished copper. She set down the tray and rushed to him.

Once, Domenic had welcomed Alanna's embraces as the most thrilling thing that had ever happened to him. Now he could not force a response. Her intensity dismayed him, like a storm sweeping away everything in its path. For a terrible moment, he froze. What could he say to her, when he knew now that what they had shared was not love but infatuation?

Illona, beloved
… The very thought of her sent a pang of inexpressible longing through him. No, he must put those memories behind him. He must think only of Alanna, here before him.

To push Alanna away would have been unthinkably cruel. Gently, he took her hands and gazed into her eyes. She was so beautiful, it was not difficult to summon a smile of genuine pleasure.

"Oh, how thoughtless of me!" she exclaimed, misunderstanding his awkwardness, his silence. "Please, have something to eat. Castle gossip has it that you were attacked outside the city gates. Here I am, thinking only of how glad I am to see you and nothing of what you must have gone through! I am self-centered, I know, for
Domna
Marguerida is always telling me so. Now that you are home, I will try to behave more thoughtfully. I am always better when you are here."

Alanna lowered herself to the footstool beside Domenic's chair and watched him eat. As usual, the dishes reflected his mother's taste: a delicate cream soup, fowl simmered in herbs and wine, a terrine of wild mushrooms, and a basket of exquisite little heart-shaped buns stuffed

with nut paste. Everything smelled delicious and tasted even better. On the trail and at Nevarsin, he'd become accustomed to plainer fare.

"Please forgive me if I seem less warm in my greeting than you deserve." Between bites, Domenic searched for the right words. "I have been on the road for some time, and, as you have heard, our arrival was eventful. But tell me, why has nothing been done to help those people? What did Mother mean,
Someone keeps stirring them up
?"

Alanna pouted, a pretty gesture. "I am never told anything of importance!
Domna
Marguerida does not even let me sit in on her meetings. Whenever I ask for anything useful to do, she tells me to go practice my sewing! I tell you, it is sometimes all I can do not to throw it in her face that soon I will be your wife, and I have every right to know these things! How can I be a proper help to you if I never hear what is going on?"

"I am glad you managed to say nothing about our engagement," Domenic said, "for we must keep it secret for a little while longer."

"I will try to please you in this, as in all things, my future husband," Alanna said, looking up at him from below lowered lashes. "
Domna
Marguerida thinks that if she tells me nothing, I will remain ignorant. But I see things…" her voice changed suddenly, turning thick and dark. "I
know
things."

"Your visions?" he asked, genuinely concerned. "You have had more of them?"

"No, no, only dreams…"

Alanna buried her face in her hands and burst into tears. Domenic put his arms around her and pulled her to him. Sobs racked her slender body. Murmuring, he stroked her hair and back. For a moment she only wept harder, but then a shudder went through her and she quieted.

"I must look a fright." Sniffing, she straightened up. "What must you think of me? A silly girl, weeping at nothing."

"I do not call your dreams
nothing"
Domenic said. "Are you feeling well enough to tell me about them? Perhaps it will help to talk."

"There is one dream that frightens me more than the rest. I look out into the city as it is now, filled with sunshine and festival flowers. But a shadow falls over my mind when I remember the vision of people lying dead everywhere. It will not go away! Night is falling, and I cannot hold it back."

Alanna leaned against him, her eyes open and dry. "Hold me," she whimpered. "Keep me safe."

He pressed his lips to her forehead. "As long as it is in my power, no harm shall come to you."

They both startled as a gentle tap sounded on the door. At Domenic's invitation, Illona stepped into the room. She had changed into the long, loosely belted robe of a Tower worker. Her demeanor was composed, grave. She gave no sign of surprise at finding Domenic and Alanna in this intimate posture.

"I am sorry to invade your privacy,
Dom
Domenic,
Damisela
Alanna," Illona said, "but your grandfather is not merely fatigued from the long journey. He has been taken ill."

Domenic stiffened. He was old enough to remember how, when Regis Hastur had been stricken with a stroke, the alarm blasted from his mother's mind—"
Something has happened to Regis
!"

Had something just as terrible happened to Lew? Not even the immense power of Mikhail's ring had been able to save Regis from his fatal stroke.

"He has suffered a heart attack," Illona said.

Alanna gasped, covering her mouth with her hands. "Oh! Is he— will he—"

"I cannot say. I have done everything that I, as one
leronis
working alone, can do. The Castle healers, who have experience with such ailments, have given him their medicines and ordered him to rest."

Domenic stood up, meeting Illona's gaze. Her eyes, so deep and expressive, seemed like pools of forest-green light. It took all his self-control not to go to her.

"How could this happen? He looked so strong and well on the way back."

"In some ways, your grandfather is older than his years," Illona explained. "In the past, he has suffered not only physical injury but also deep psychic trauma."

"As had Great-Uncle Regis," Alanna murmured. "Everyone said he should have lived much longer."

Illona looked at Alanna, clearly not expecting such insight. "We do not know for certain that such harm shortens a man's life. It may have affected
Dom
Lewis's heart in ways we are powerless to heal. He had an

episode of chest pain at Nevarsin at a time when he was under great stress. As far as we could determine, he had made a complete recovery. Perhaps facing those men outside the city, using his
laran
under stress…"

Illona closed her eyes, her face tightening.
It is all my fault. If only I had noticed earlier. If only
—

"We cannot live our lives on
if only
," Domenic cut off her anguished thought.
If there is a fault, it is mine as well
.

"He is stable enough for the moment," Illona said, quickly drawing herself together. "I understand that Istvana of Neskaya will be arriving in the next few days, and then we shall know more. Meanwhile, he has asked to see you. I think it would ease his mind."

"Of course," he said. "Alanna, I will return as soon as I can—"

"May I not come, too?"

Illona shook her head minutely and Domenic felt the sweetness of her mental touch. II
is too soon to know how serious your grandfathers condition is
, she told him,
but there are things that must be said
—
-privately
.

You will be there
? Domenic asked.

Illona inclined her head, her eyes lowered.
As long as I am needed. As long as
you
need me
.

Only a heartbeat had passed during their wordless exchange. Alanna stood between them, her chest heaving, her glance flickering from one to the other.

Domenic raised Alanna's hand to his lips. "I must hurry, my sweet. It is difficult to wait, but we are not our own masters in circumstances like this."

Alanna opened her mouth, clearly preparing to protest. Her breath caught and her chin came up. "I—" she began in a strange, choked voice, "I will await your news of
Dom
Lewis. Please do not delay on my account."

At the door, something made Domenic pause and look back at Alanna. Her cheeks had gone pale, her eyes huge and glassy, like those of a stricken deer. She held herself with a desperate, fragile dignity that he had never seen in her before. A word would shatter her.

Summoning a strained smile, he turned away.

Arriving at Lew's quarters, Domenic and Illona pushed past a gaggle of body-servants and one of the Castle healers, a gaunt, unsmiling woman of middle years wearing an enormous pocketed apron over her dress. The curtains of Lew's bedchamber had been partly drawn, saturating the air with diffuse light. The panels of pale blue stone set at intervals in the dark-gray walls gleamed faintly.

Propped on pillows on the enormous four-poster bed, Lew lay so still that for a terrifying instant, Domenic feared they had come too late. Then the chest beneath the
linex
nightshirt slowly rose and fell. Lew's head had fallen slightly to one side, his lips parted. The deeply incised scars of his suffering stood out against his withered flesh. Domenic could see the shape of the skull beneath the skin, the frailness of the single hand lying upon the covers. In that moment, his heart understood what his mind had only envisioned.

The old man might die, this bulwark of strength he had known all his life.

Men do die
, Illona, behind Domenic, brushed his mind softly with hers.
We all must, in our time. Only death and next winter's snows are certain
…

Domenic knelt beside the bed and ran his fingertips over his grand-

father's hand. The skin was thin but surprisingly soft, like weathered paper. The contact brought with it a rush of psychic impressions—the laboring heart, the layers of old wounds, the intense faceted brilliance of Lew's
laran
. This man, Domenic remembered, possessed the Alton Gift in full, had trained at Arilinn, the most prestigious of Darkover's Towers, had stood against the immensely powerful Sharra matrix.

Grandfather, don't die! Stay with us, we who love you!

The cry sprang unbidden from the depths of Domenic's heart. Love swept through him, love and pity that the man before him had known so much pain in his long life, and so little peace.

Ah, but I
have
found peace
.

It took Domenic a moment to realize that his grandfather had spoken to him, mind to mind. He blinked away sudden tears to see Lew's eyes open and shining. Bony fingers tightened around his own.

"I do not fear death," Lew said, his usually hoarse voice now softened, "for I have laid my demons to rest. I have done all I could to set right my own sins and have been forgiven. There is but one thing left. Domenic, if I do not—if I cannot—" he paused for breath.

Illona rushed to his side. "Hush, now. You will need all your strength to recover."

I may not have another chance.

"Very well, but if I see you exerting yourself overly, I will intervene." With a nod to Domenic, Illona withdrew to the far side of the room, shielding her mind so that they could speak telepathically in private.

"What is so important?" Domenic whispered.

Jeram…you must find him, help him. He may be in terrible danger.

I don't understand. From whom?

Lew's mind opened to Domenic's, and in the swirl of memory and thought, sight and
laran
, the story unfolded. For a moment, Domenic found himself on Old North Road once again. In his mind, he saw the men in dark brown and green rushing the funeral cortege, the mad scramble as the Guards wheeled in defense, and then the flare as the first blaster fired, and, finally, the shimmering brighter-than-bright sphere created by his parents from their joined
laran
.

What.
. .? Domenic looked on the faces of the fallen men, and recognized his grandfather's student from Nevarsin.

Jeram came to Thendara to ask the Council for amnesty
', Lew said.
But he

never got that far. You heard the story, how he went to the Administrative Building and then disappeared. I do not believe this was random chance. I fear he has fallen into the hands of those who would use his story for their own purposes. I still have a responsibility to him
…

Lew fell back on his pillow. Illona, on the other side of the room, looked up sharply.

"Find him," Lew whispered. "Promise me…"

"That is enough for now," Illona interrupted. She hurried to the bedside. Her starstone flashed, blue-white, and she laid one hand upon Lew's chest.

At that moment, the latch clicked open. Marguerida burst into the room and rushed to the bedside. She had thrown an old tattered shawl over her shoulders. Her fair cheeks were flushed. Domenic had never seen her so distraught.

"Oh, Father! I came as soon as I heard. This can't be what my Gift was warning me about! You must fight, do you hear me? Fight! Don't you leave me, like Dio did!"

The healer, stern-faced, followed closely on Marguerida's heels. "
Domna
! Compose yourself!" she barked. "You will do him harm if you carry on this way! To say nothing of turning yourself into a second patient, thereby diverting my attention from where it is needed most. Now, will you behave in a more suitable manner, or must I exclude you from these premises?"

Marguerida straightened herself and smoothed back the tendrils of hair that had escaped from their clasp. "There must be something I can do!"

Illona said, "The healer and I can manage very well."

"Mother, I think Illona has the right of it," Domenic said, taking Marguerida's ungloved hand and drawing her toward the door. "We will only distract these good women from their work. In the meantime, there is much to do to prepare for the Council session, and when Grandfather is able to join us, he will need all your strength."

Marguerida looked uncertain, but relented under Domenic's gentle persuasion. She allowed him to escort her from the room, after the healer promised to send word at the slightest change in Lew's condition.

In the next tenday, Lew's condition stabilized and improved. Istvana Ridenow and Liriel Lanart, who was a highly skilled matrix technician, had arrived in Thendara early. With Illona, they formed a healing circle. Domenic, watching his grandfather gain daily in strength, thought that few men in the history of Darkover had been tended by such a circle.

Illona had sensed rightly that Lew's body had been affected by what his mind had suffered. The confrontation at the city gates and the use of his
laran
to quell the angry mob had pushed him past his limits. Rest and the medicines prepared by the Castle healers gradually eased the burden on his heart. He responded vigorously to the outpouring of healing energy from the assembled
leroni
.

Istvana observed, after a particularly encouraging treatment, "It is as if he has truly put the past behind him. He has chosen, with his whole spirit, to live."

The Castle filled quickly as more Comyn arrived for the season. Lew continued to improve so well that Istvana and Liriel made plans to meet with Alanna to see what could be done about the safeguards placed in her mind. It would be a delicate task, as Liriel had not been privy to the intervention, and Loren MacAndrews herself had remained at Arilinn, sending Liriel as her representative. Although Liriel was a technician rather than an under-Keeper, her experience, tact, and calm temperament made her an excellent choice. When Alanna heard about the plan, however, she flatly refused to have anything to do with them. Not even Domenic could persuade her. When he tried, she became distraught, the way she did when anyone suggested she return to Arilinn. She even accused Domenic of trying to get rid of her. Rather than risk her making herself ill from hysterics, he dropped the subject.

As the days passed, Domenic searched the city for any clue to what had happened to Lew's friend, Jeram. Danilo knew nothing of the matter, although he offered to have his agents keep watch and make discreet inquiries. Uncle Gabriel remembered his brief interview with Jeram, but nothing more. The Guardsman whom Marguerida had asked to follow Jeram recalled losing track of him only a short distance from the City Administrative offices. No one Domenic talked to had seen Jeram since then. It was as if the city, like some ravenous beast, had swallowed him up.

Men do not simply vanish, not even in Thendara
, Domenic told himself stubbornly, and he kept asking questions until his normal Council season obligations forced him to leave off.

The usual festivities that began the season were somewhat subdued compared to previous years, for Marguerida was distracted by her father's convalescence. In her place, Gisela Aldaran and Miralys Elhalyn organized a reception ball. Marguerida's other friend, Katherine Aldaran, was delayed due to an outbreak of a mysterious fever in Caer Donn, still being rebuilt after the Sharra firestorm. In the midst of this, news came that the senior Gabriel had passed away. The younger Gabriel and Rafael took over arrangements for a quiet private funeral, as their father had wished. After his body was taken to Thendara, the family laid him to rest near Javanne's unmarked grave.

Marguerida did not attend the opening festivities, but Domenic did, and he danced several times with Alanna, as well as with Danaria Val-londe and one of the Leynier cousins, a plump, raven-haired girl named Kyria. Gareth Elhalyn was in attendance, along with his brother Derek, both of them drinking lightly and behaving themselves very well. In contrast, Kennard-Dyan Ardais got so drunk that Rory and Niall had to carry him back to his quarters. It was, Domenic thought, hardly an auspicious beginning to the season.

When the Comyn Council gathered for its first session, Danilo took his usual seat in the Ardais enclosure, along with Kennard-Dyan, looking much the worse for his earlier bout of drinking. Two of Kennard-Dyan's
nedestro
sons, having reached their majority, shared the box.

Men and women filed into the Crystal Chamber. Liriel Lanart, Ist-vana Ridenow, and Moira DiAsturien, a pretty, sweet-tempered woman who had trained at Neskaya but now was Keeper at the tiny Tower of Corandolis, sat with their own families. At Danilo's suggestion, Mikhail had arranged for the other
leroni
to use the empty space in the Aillard enclosure, and a special banner, a white Tower against a field of star-stone blue, hung beside the Aillard gray and crimson. Illona took her place there, talking with Linnea Storn and Laurinda MacBard of Dalereuth Tower. Laurinda was a pale, homely, heavy-boned woman with a stern demeanor and a high, nasal voice that Danilo found abra-

sive, but her
laran
, what he sensed of it before the telepathic dampers were set, was clear and bright, like sunlight on a droplet of pure water. Obviously, Danilo reflected,
laran
did not necessarily confer a pleasing manner.

Marguerida and Mikhail entered after most of the others had taken their places, followed by Domenic and Rory. Donal Alar walked just behind and to Mikhail's right side, as a proper paxman. Alanna accompanied them, attending Marguerida. In the Alton enclosure, the younger Gabriel sat as Head of the Domain. Lew's chair remained vacant. Hermes and Katherine Aldaran had just arrived the night before, joining the others of their Domain. They had brought Yllana, as well.

The opening ceremonies proceeded with the usual pomp and grandeur of the formal roll call. One Domain after another answered the summons, but there was no mention of Gareth ascending to the throne.

Mikhail introduced the members of the new Keepers Council, and Laurinda, as their elected spokeswoman, addressed the assembly briefly. Except in matters affecting both Tower and Council, she said, they would meet separately, reporting any major decisions to the Council.

Marilla Lindir-Aillard asked what sort of questions they were likely to take up. The years had worn heavily on her, and not even her rich gown of gray and scarlet, the colors of her Domain, could hide the frailness of her body or distract from the deep creases around her eyes and mouth.

"Getting to know one another better, for one thing," Laurinda responded. "We often speak to each other over the relays, but we have time for little else besides the messages at hand. All of us feel that the Towers are too isolated and our people stretched too far. Each season, fewer young people come to us for training. Once, it was customary for all Comyn sons and daughters to spend a season or two in a Tower, but now even those with talent stay away or leave after only a short time. The life of a
leronis
is not for everyone."

After Laurinda had finished speaking, Danilo rose at Mikhail's prearranged invitation. "The Towers are not the only place our strength has grown thin. We ourselves have diminished in numbers, so that with each generation, more power is concentrated in fewer hands. Look around this very chamber. Count the empty places."

He paused to sweep the walled-off enclosures with his gaze. Aillard had no heir, nor did Ardais.

"I propose that, for the sake of both the Towers and the Domains, we expand membership in the Comyn," Danilo said. "I ask that all
nede-stro
offspring, and even those with lesser blood, be named legitimate, with full right to participate in Tower and Council."

A stunned silence answered him. "What are you saying, that we admit any sort of riffraff among us?" Gabriel was the first to speak, followed by a dozen others, equally outraged.

"
Vai domyn
! Kinsmen! Calm yourselves!" Mikhail said.

"It is not an unreasonable suggestion," Dani Hastur said, once the uproar had quieted. "Once, even within the time of our fathers, a man could not be sealed to the Comyn unless he possessed
laran
. Have you not heard tales of how Kennard Alton almost killed
Dom
Lewis doing just that? Yet how many of us have only the slightest talent and no training to use it? How can we sit here and deny others with far stronger
laran"