Traitor's Sun (11 page)

Linnea dropped her mug from nerveless fingers at the sight of her son, spilling tea down the front of her rumpled gown, tears welling in her blue eyes. Dani embraced her gently, as if afraid she might break in his grasp, and placed a soft kiss on her cheek. They stood together for a moment, her head resting on his shoulder. Then he released her and approached the bed.

Dani Hastur stood beside the bed, looking at the still shape of his father beneath the linens. Then he sat down and took a hand in his own, stroking it softly. Regis did not stir. Only the subtle rise and fall of his sunken chest gave evidence that he still lived.

“Father.” Dani’s voice broke over the word. “It’s me, Dani.”

The silence in the room was disturbed only by the ragged sound of Dani’s breathing, and the sobs of Lady Linnea now beside him. Mikhail watched the tableau and sensed a slight change in the man in the bed. For a moment his heart clenched with the hope that Regis was going to rouse, to wake and speak to his son. But instead he saw a faint shudder ripple along the form beneath the covers, and knew that his desperate hope was in vain. Regis-Rafael Felix Alar Hastur y Elhalyn was no more.

A strange sensation gripped him then, a brush of warmth on his face, and a tingling in his right hand. Mikhail looked down at the gleaming matrix on his finger, and watched in wonder as it flashed brightly, coruscating in the dim light of the bedchamber. He had never seen the stone do that before, and the intensity of it was painful.

Mikhail turned his eyes away, unable to look any longer. He glanced back toward the bed, his eyes aching. In the hangings behind the headboard something flickered, a play of light and shadow. For a moment he thought he saw two women, one fair, one dark, in the folds of the textile. They seemed to be transparent, and he might have thought it was some trick of the light. But the fair face was one he had seen before, long ago, in another place and time. He drew a sharp breath of startlement and the vision vanished. His heart pounded and blood rushed through his veins, making him dizzy. Evanda, Goddess of Spring, was the fair one, and the other must be Avarra, the Dark Goddess. Even as grief began to seize him, Mikhail felt another emotion, one of otherworldly calm, arise within him.

Beside him, Marguerida wept silently, the tears coursing down her pale cheeks. Mikhail put his arm around her shoulders and drew her against his chest gently, allowing himself to feel everything all at once, only for an instant. He could not really believe it was over. Somehow, in the deepest recesses of his heart, he had expected some miracle would occur, and all he could feel now was a vast sense of emptiness and failure that it had not. What a fool he was.

Danilo Syrtis-Ardais moved from his place in the shadow of the bedcurtains. The paxman set aside his mug and bent over the body in the bed. He put his hand around the wrist of his lifelong friend and held it in his grasp, his lean face alert and resigned at the same time. After a minute, he took Dani’s hand off of his father’s, and folded Regis’ arms carefully across his chest. Danilo stared down into the still face of the man who had been his best friend and companion for more than four decades. He touched the brow softly, stroking the white hair, his face filled with infinite tenderness. Then he bent down and kissed the pale cheek of his lifelong friend, and turned away, his shoulders shaking with grief.

Dani Hastur gazed at his father for a long time, a look of yearning on his face. He continued to sit on the side of the bed, dumbstruck, and then finally he lifted the sheet tenderly and drew it over Regis Hastur’s peaceful face. He stood shakily, then mastered himself. He took Lady Linnea into his arms again, and she seemed to collapse into his grasp, as if, at last, her legs would no longer support her. She leaned against him, her head pillowed on his shoulder, and wept uncontrollably.

The vivid details remained before Mikhail’s eyes for several seconds, and then began to blur, as if rain were falling. He realized that the tears he had held back while he struggled for the life of his uncle would not be denied any longer. The overwhelming power of his feelings was too much, and, abruptly, he turned and walked out.

 

Mikhail sat in his uncle’s shabby study, behind the large desk where Regis often worked, stared into the fireplace and wept. The carpet was rather threadbare, but Regis had refused to have it replaced, or to have anything done to the room. Servants were only permitted to come in to sweep and dust. It gave him an odd feeling to remember the rather pleasant arguments between his uncle and Lady Linnea about the state of the room—it had been such a cheerful and caring dispute.

He had come there hours before, unable to sleep or think or function, fleeing duty, fleeing life. There was no fire in the hearth, so the room was cold and the air was chill and stale. He had a bottle of firewine on the desk, and a glass beside it. The level of the wine was much diminished since he had arrived, but it had not lessened his paralyzing, aching grief at all. He was not even drunk. Such was the power of Varzil’s matrix that he could not dull his senses, no matter how he tried.

Distantly, Mikhail could sense Comyn Castle bustling around him. Even the death of Regis Hastur could not halt the steady function of the huge complex completely. He knew that his young paxman and nephew, Donal Alar, was standing outside the door of the study, to guarantee his solitude, even though poor Donal was surely ready to drop in his tracks. Fostering the young man had been Marguerida’s idea, and he was glad of it now. Prying Donal and his sister Alanna out of Ariel Lanart-Alar’s anxious grasp had been difficult, but Mikhail believed it had probably saved their sanity. Ariel had never been the same after Alanna was born, and he was deeply saddened by that.

Somewhere he knew that Marguerida was doing her best to deal with all the arrangements that must be seen to. There would have to be a funeral, but not until all the lords of the Domains arrived, and that would be several days at least. His mother and father were still at Armida, even though he knew that Javanne should have been informed as soon as Regis fell ill. But Lady Linnea, usually the most sweet-tempered of women, had been adamant. “It is all I can bear to see him like this, Mikhail. I will not have that woman in Comyn Castle until I must.” Under the circumstances, he had bowed to her wishes. And with a slight sense of guilt, he had agreed with Linnea. His mother was not an easy person at the best of times, and having her underfoot would have been intolerable.

His mind went to Marguerida, knowing she was as tired as he was himself, yet shouldering the burden of preparing for the funeral. There had not been such an event for decades, and although he knew that the
coridom
of Comyn Castle would do his best to help her, the man was ancient and likely so grief stricken he would be of little use. He would have preferred she was in bed, with a hot brick at her feet, but she was probably up and about, doing those things he himself should be managing. He tried to think what those duties might be, and found only sorrow and despair.
He was not ready!

It was dark outside, and his belly was grumbling. How long had it been since he had eaten? Mikhail could not remember, and even though his body needed food, he had no appetite. His eyes were swollen with crying and lack of sleep, and his shoulder muscles were taut with tension. The candles were unlit, and he could not summon the energy to rise and set them aflame.

The light from the corridor made a bright band on the floor as the door of the study opened, and Lew Alton entered. He stared at his father-in-law dumbly, annoyed by being disturbed, and for a moment, furious that Donal had permitted even this special person to enter his sanctuary. Then he realized it was not his, but Regis’ place, this battered desk and worn carpet. This room was still so filled with the presence of his uncle that he ached with it. It seemed to him it was all he had left of the man, and he did not wish to share it with anyone just yet. Donal followed Lew into the room, unwilling to let even this most trusted advisor alone with his master, and closed the door. Then he leaned against the jamb, folded his arms, and tried to become invisible.

Lew said nothing, but got a firestarter and knelt beside the cold hearth. There was a flash, then a flicker of flame in the kindling laid there. Mikhail watched the fire lick at the logs, curling around them, eating them up with light and color. He watched Lew take a small brand from the fire and start to light the candles. The comforting smell of hot wax and burning wood began to fill the room.

Lew poured himself a glass of wine and took a chair on the opposite side of the desk. His hair had turned completely gray, and his facial scars were almost invisible, buried in the wrinkles that seamed his face. He was a weathered man, his skin rough and dry, and tonight he looked his age. Mikhail saw the redness around his father-in-law’s eyes, and knew that he had been weeping.

“Marguerida sent me,” Lew said after swallowing half of the contents of his glass.

“Are you here to tell me I must put aside my grief and think of my duty to Darkover?” Mikhail snapped, startling himself with his own vehemence. He felt his face redden with embarrassment, and Donal roused from his place by the door and gave him an odd look.

“Certainly not! You can sit in the dark for the next week for all I care—although I hope you will not. But your absence is disturbing.”

Mikhail hunched his shoulders. “I just couldn’t bear to see him laid out—not yet. I am still in shock.”

“There will be plenty of time for that later, Mikhail. It will take the better part of a week for everyone to arrive, for the bier to be constructed and put in place. And I do understand. When Dio finally died, even though I knew she was going to, even though Marguerida had restored her to me for five years, it took many days before I could believe it had actually happened. There were times when I cursed my own daughter for bringing her back, because I had to lose her twice. But I had time to prepare—although I did nothing of the sort! There is, I think, something in us that denies death. We convince ourselves that it will somehow be avoided or delayed, that everyone we love will outlive us, so we won’t have to suffer the loss or perhaps admit that the ones we love are mortal. When my father died on Vainwal, I was completely stunned, and furious. And for you, as close as you were to Regis, this is probably more like the death of your father than anything else.”

Mikhail heard the words, but they did not seem to penetrate his mind. All he could feel was a vast and endless numbness. But after a few moments of consideration he realized that Regis
had
been like a father to him, more than an uncle. For a time this had estranged him from
Dom
Gabriel, his actual father. And he realized that he knew now, as he had not before, that the Old Man would die, too, and he would be bereft again. And Lew, sitting across from him, sipping firewine. He had become so close to Marguerida’s father during the past fifteen years that he was as dear to Mikhail as either Regis or
Dom
Gabriel.

At the same time, there was something else that troubled him. He prodded at it, trying to bring to consciousness the vagrant wisp that perturbed him. It was, he decided, guilt, though why he should feel that way he could not say immediately. Had he done enough? Was there anything he could have done to extend Regis Hastur’s life?

Mikhail glanced down at his right hand, encased in a thin glove of finest leather once more, now he was no longer doing the healing work he had performed in the sick room. The great, glittering matrix that rode on his finger was hidden, but always he could sense its presence. It was so powerful that there had been times since he received it that he had wanted to cast it away, to be relieved of the burden of it. It had made him the most powerful person on Darkover, too powerful for the comfort of some of the lords of the Domains, like Francisco Ridenow, and certainly for the peace of mind of his mother, Javanne. More, it had kept him a near prisoner in Comyn Castle for fifteen years, surrounded by Guards and watchers, always aware that anything he might do would be measured and analyzed. He was respected, but he was also feared, even by the uncle he had loved so much.

And now—what? He would succeed Regis. Hadn’t he prepared for this moment for his entire life? Why did it feel so wrong, so empty and frightening? He was no longer the boy who had dreamed of ruling Darkover, nor the man who had, for a time, given up those ambitions. He was someone else, and Mikhail wondered if he knew himself at all. He did not wish to think about it any longer. He was too weary for self-examination, and he suspected it was closer to self-indulgence in any case.

He forced himself to stop dwelling on his aching sense of loss, and searched for some topic of conversation. At last he said, “Marguerida told me that Herm Aldaran had arrived. What is going on?”

“Ah, that.” Lew gave a grim smile and reached across the desk for the wine. The bottle was nearly empty, and he poured the last drops into his glass. “Herm and his family, actually. I received word that he was coming only hours before he arrived, and it did not seem important enough to tell you immediately. You had enough on your plate, Mikhail. But it seems that the entire legislature has been dissolved, by executive order of the Premier, until new elections can be held. My best guess is that this means that there will be no more Federation Congress—ever—or that if it exists, it will be filled with those who toe the Expansionist line completely. This coup was almost inevitable, given the Expansionist mind-set, and I fear that whatever survives of the Federation will be a military dictatorship or something even worse.”

Mikhail’s mind was too fatigued to completely grasp everything Lew was saying, so he focused on what he did understand. “Elections? Half the worlds in the Federation have no more use for democratic government than a donkey for dancing shoes.” It felt like a blessing to channel his remaining energy into a mild sense of disbelief and concern over this new development, even though he was perfectly aware that it would have unimaginable ramifications for Darkover. Those fears would keep until his mind was less muddled.