CHAPTER FOURTEEN

So the Sword of Aldones was a real sword, after all; long and gleaming and deadly, and of so fine a temper that it made my own look like a child’s leaden toy. In the hilt, through a thin layer of insulating silk, winking jewels gleamed blue.

It might have been a duplicate of the Sharra sword, but that now seemed an inferior forgery of the glorious thing I held.

This was not a concealment for a hidden matrix; rather it was a matrix. It seemed to have a life of its own. A tingle of power, not unpleasant, flowed up my arm. I gripped the hilt and drew it a little way—

“No,” Callina said warningly, and gripped my hand. A moment, stubborn, I resisted; then slid it back into the sheath.

“That’s that,” I said harshly. “Let’s get out of here.”

Dawn was breaking over the lake when we came out, and the wet sunlight glinted, ominously, on steel. Kathie cried out, in terror, as three men stepped toward us.

Three men? No; two — and a woman. Kadarin, Dyan — and between them, slim and vital as a dark flame, Thyra Scott smiled up at me, her mocking mouth daring me to speak or strike. I caught the dagger from my belt. Thyra stood steady, her naked throat upturned to the steel.

My hand tilted and the knife fell from it.

“Get out of my way, witch!”

Her low, fey laughter raised a million ghosts, but her voice was steel. “What have you done with my daughter?”

“My daughter,” I said. “She’s safe. But you can’t have her.”

Dyan took a step, but Kadarin took his elbow and hauled him back. “Wait, you.”

Thyra said, “We will bargain. Give me what the Keeper holds, and you go free.”

“We will anyhow,” I said.

Kadarin drew his sword. I should have known; it was the one bearing the Sharra matrix. “Will you?” he asked softly. “Better hand it over. I intend to kill you, but you couldn’t give me a fair fight, not now.” His eyes swept, with gentle contempt, from my bandaged head to my feet. “Don’t try.”

“I suppose you have Trailmen in hiding with your usual odds of twenty to one?”

Kadarin nodded. “They won’t touch you. You’re for me. But the women—”

“Go to hell,” I snarled, and, flashing the sword from the sheath, I flung myself at Kadarin. The touch of the hilt poured that stream of overflowing life through me; the blood beat so hard in my temples that I was faint with it. Kadarin whipped up the Sharra sword. The swords-touched—

The Sword of Aldones blazed blue fire! Like a living thing it leaped from my hand and clattered down, coruscating blue fire from hilt to point. The two swords lay crossed on the ground, streams of wild blue flame cascading about them. Kadarin was reeling.

I picked myself up. We stood back, neither daring to approach the fallen blades.

But Kathie darted between us and caught up both swords. To her, I think, they were only swords. She held one in either hand, carefully. The blue flames died.

“That won’t help,” Kadarin said, and added grimly, “Don’t be a self-sacrificing fool. Give me the Sharra matrix and go. We couldn’t take the Sword of Aldones, maybe. But we can take the Sharra one, and we will. You could kill me, kill Dyan, kill Thyra — but you can’t kill them all!”

Of course there was no choice. I had the women to guard. “Give it to him, Kathie,” I said at last. This was only a draw. The real fight would come later.

“Give it up? Now?”

“I’m no hero,” I said savagely, “and you’ve never seen the Trailmen fight.” I took Sharra’s matrix from her hand. Dyan stepped forward, but Kadarin elbowed him away. “Not you!”

It was fortunate we had Kadarin to deal with. When we fought, it would be to death — but it would be fair. “We can go. His word’s good.”

But Thyra flung herself forward, the knife bright in her hand. I twisted, just too late; she drove the knife into my side.

I got my arm up and knocked her hard, stunningly, across the face; then I sat down, hard, my hand to the numb slash. Blood dripped through my fingers. I heard Kadarin cry out like a berserker; dimly saw him shaking Thyra with maniac strength, back and forth, and finally he cast her to the ground, where she lay moaning. She had violated his word.

And then I blacked out.

There was a roaring sound around me. I was lying with my head in Kathie’s lap.

“Lie still. They’re taking us to Thendara in a rocket-car.”

“Keep him quiet, Kathie.”

I reached for Callina’s hand, but it was the cool brittle fingertips of Ashara that were fetters on my wrist, her cold eyes in the grayness. I jolted awake; something had touched my mind. Marja! I reached for her, but where she had been was only an empty, place in the world—

I shook my brain free of delirium for a minute. Of course I could not touch Marja. Not in pain like this. I would not want to let her share this now.

But a man’s mind is so alone, shut up inside the bones of the skull.

I sank into the gray night again.

I was walking…

There was an arm beneath my shoulders, and Kadarin’s voice said, “Easy! He can walk. It’s just a scratch, the knife turned on the ribs.”

My eyes wouldn’t focus. I heard someone say sharply “Good God! come in here, and sit down.”

The dizziness cleared. I was standing in the Terran HQ, a rolling view of the spaceport lying far below me, and straight before me, at a big glass-topped desk, Dan Lawton was standing, looking at me with surprise and concern. Kadarin’s arm was still holding me upright. I pulled away; from somewhere out of my range of vision, Regis Hastur got up, came to me, took me firmly by the shoulders and put me into a chair.

“Who in the hell are you?”

Kadarin bowed, ever so slightly.

“Robert Raymon Kadarin, z’par servu. And you?”

Behind us, a door opened and Kathie’s voice said anxiously, “Is he really — oh, hello, Dan.”

The Terran Legate shook his head. “In a minute,” he said to nobody in particular, “I shall begin to gibber. Hello, Kathie. It is you?”

She looked dubiously at me. “May I tell him?”

“Wait, wait. One thing at a time. I’ll go nuts, if I have to unravel anything more just now. Kadarin. I’ve wanted to set eyes on you for quite a while. You know you’ve finally stepped over the line?”

“I claim immunity,” Kadarin said harshly. “Lew Alton would have died at Hall I had given him safe-conduct, and his life has been formally claimed; it is mine to dispose of as I will. I brought him here of my own free will, when I could have preserved my own immunity by staying away and letting him die. I claim immunity.”

Lawton groaned. But Kadarin had the legal right of it. “All right. But no telepathic tricks.”

He smiled bitterly. “I couldn’t, if I would. Dyan Ardais ran off with the Sharra matrix. I’m as helpless as Lew, here!”

Rafe Scott came suddenly into the office. The boy’s face took on a stunned look, as he saw me, and Regis, and Kadarin, and Kathie; but he spoke to Lawton.

“Why have you locked Thyra up downstairs?”

“Do you know that woman?” Lawton demanded sharply.

“She’s my sister,” Kadarin said, while Rafe was still sputtering.

“Damn it!” Lawton exploded, “every troublemaker on the planet is related to you one way or another, Rafe! She tried to murder Lew Alton, that’s all. When we brought her in, all of a sudden we had a screeching maniac on our hands, so I had the doctor give her a shot, and dumped her in a cell to cool off.”

Rafe came to me, his voice urgent. “Lew, why would Thyra—”

“Let him alone, you!” Regis shoved Rafe roughly away. I gripped Regis’ arm. “Don’t start another fight,” I implored. “Don’t! Don’t!”

A moment he resisted, then shrugged, and sat on the arm of my chair, glaring at Rafe. “Wasn’t Callina with you?”

“The medical officer kept her too,” Kathie said. “She was dizzy — sick. She kept falling asleep.”