“I thought so,” I said. “When we touch, all the strength drains out of us both. They’ve smuggled some trap-matrix in there, eighth or ninth level, the kind that picks up vital energy—” My jaw fell. “Sharra!”

“Lew, are we feeding that damned thing?”

“We’ll hope not,” I said!"Can you touch Callina?”

I felt Regis, almost instinctively, grope for contact again; quickly, I barricaded myself. “Don’t ever do that!” I commanded. The fumbling touch was raw agony; yet endure it I must, danger or no, at least once more. “Regis, when I say the word, link with me — for about a thousandth of a second. But whatever you do, don’t freeze into rapport with me! If you do, we’ll both burn out. Remember, you’re Hastur and I’m Alton!”

He swallowed, convulsively. “You’d better do the linking. I can’t control it yet.”

For the barest instant, then, we contacted, in a scanning that sifted the whole diameter of the crowd. It was not a hundredth of a second, but even that flung us apart in a shock of blinding pain. A full tenth of a second would have burned out every spark of vital energy in our bodies. To who-ever controlled the hidden matrix, it must have flamed like a starship on a radar screen.

But I knew what I wanted. Somewhere in the castle, a trap-matrix — not Sharra this time — was focused, with obscene intensity, on the weakest link in the Comyn: Derik Elhalyn.

And I had thought him only drunk!

The thick, inarticulate speech; the irritable confusion of brain, the fumbling limbs — all symptoms of a mind under an unmonitored matrix. And whoever set it, had a mind both perverted and sadistic — that this complex revenge on Callina should be carried out by Linnell’s lover!

I reached for Callina, but only emptiness greeted my seeking mind. It is a horrifying thing to feel only an empty place in the fluid mechanism of space, where once there was a living mind. Could even death blank her away so completely?

Regis turned a strained, heartbroken face to me.

“Lew, if he’s touched her—”

“Easy. Derik doesn’t know, he never will know what he’s doing, you know. Listen; I need your help. I’m going straight into Derik’s mind and try to lift the matrix trap.” For the first time in my life I was grateful for the Alton Gift, which could force rapport — and which could go into a matrix without the half-dozen monitors and dampers an ordinary matrix mech would need. “Those things are plain hell, Regis. Now, when I get it lifted, you try to break it up. But don’t you touch me — or Derik — or you’ll kill all three of us.”

It was a desperate chance. No sane person will go into a mind controlled by a trap-matrix; it is walking into a blind alley which may be filled with monsters ready to spring. And I would have to drop all my barriers, and trust the untried strength of a newly-Zaran Hastur who could kill me with a random touch.

Every instinct screamed no; but I reached out and focused on Derik.

And knew, at once, I had touched that thing before; when I tried to probe Lerrys.

Derik, like a man who feels the sting of a knife through an incomplete anesthetic, twisted to escape; but this time I held fast, grimly- forcing- my focused strength as a wedge between mind and the trick matrix that held it in submission.

Behind me, as a man may look at mirrored light he dares not face, I sensed Regis; he had seized on that alien force, and he was tearing it to bits; destroying each strand of force as I lifted that telepathic web, thread by thread, out of the nerves of Derik’s brain.

But now it was being forced on me, too. As a man at a screen may watch two starships battle, so the holder of this unholy matrix was watching the three-way duel, perhaps ready with a new weapon. Necessity and the need for haste made me careless how I tortured Derik; but I knew, too, if Derik were himself, he would thank me for this.

As I forced down barrier after barrier, something fought me, a grotesque parody of the real Derik; but I won. I felt it flicker, vanish like a trace of smoke, burnt away. The compulsion was gone, the trap-matrix destroyed — and Derik, at least, was clean.

I withdrew;

Regis leaned against a pillar, his face dead white. I asked, “Could you tell who was controlling it?”

“Not a trace. When the matrix shattered, I felt Callina, but then—” Regis frowned, “she blanked again, and all I felt was Ashara! Why Ashara?”

I didn’t know. But if Ashara were aroused and aware, at least she would protect Callina.

We had given ourselves away, Regis and I; we had lost vital strength; but for the moment, perhaps, we were safe. My main worry now was for Regis. I was mature, trained in the use of these powers, and I knew the limits of my own endurance. He didn’t. Unless he learned caution, the next step would be nerve depletion and collapse.

I tried to warn him, but he shrugged it off. “Don’t worry about me. Who’s that with Linnell?”

I turned to see if he meant Kathie or the man in harlequin costume who had so disturbed me. Beside them was another masked figure, a man in a cowled robe which hid his face and body completely. But something about him reminded me, suddenly and horribly, of the hell in Derik’s mind. Another victim — or the controller? I had to fight myself to keep from running across the room and pitching him bodily away from Linnell.

I went toward them, slowly. Linnell asked, “Lew, where have you been?”

“Outside, watching the eclipse,” I said briefly.

Linnell glanced up at me, timidly, troubled.

“What is it, chiya?” The childish pet name still came easily.

“Lew, who is Kathie, really? When I’m near her, I feel terribly strange. It’s not just because she looks so like me, it’s as if she were me. And then I feel — I don’t know — as if I had to come close to her, touch her, embrace her. It’s a kind of pain! I can’t keep away from her! But if I do touch her, I want to pull away and scream—” Linnell was twisting her hands nervously, ready to burst into hysterical tears or laughter. I didn’t know what to say. Linnell wasn’t a girl to fret over trifles; if it affected her like this, it was no minor whim.

Kathie had been dancing with Rafe Scott. As she came back, she smiled at Linnell; and almost without discernible volition, Linnell began to move in her direction. Was Kathie working some malicious mental trick on my little cousin? But no. Kathie had no awareness of Darkovan powers. I knew that. And nothing could get through that block I’d put on her.

Linnell touched Kathie’s hand, almost shyly; in immediate response, Kathie put an arm around Linnell’s waist, and they walked for a minute like that, enlaced. Then, with a sudden lithe movement Linnell drew herself, free and came and caught at me.

“There’s Callina,” I said.

The Keeper, aloof in her starry draperies, threaded her way through the maze of dancers. “Where have you been, Callina?Linnell demanded. She looked at her sister’s strange costume “with sorrowful puzzlement, but she did not comment; and Callina made no attempt to justify or explain herself.

“Yes,” I demanded, with an intent look at Callina, shading the words telepathically, “where have you been?”

She seemed unaware of either overtone, and her careless words were devoid of any hidden message that I could read. “Talking with Derik. He drew me apart to hear some long confused drunken tale of his, but he never did get it told. I don’t envy you, darling,” she added, smiling at her sister. “Fortunately all the wine conquered him at last — may he never be defeated by a worse enemy.” She shrugged daintily. “Hastur is signaling to me. Beltran is there, I suppose it’s time for the ceremony.”

“Callina—” Linnell almost sobbed, but the woman moved away from her outstretched hands. “Don’t pity me, Linne,” she said, “I won’t have it.” And I could tell that what she meant was “I can’t bear it.”