He was dead. He must have been dead. Yet horribly, with the galvanic movements of a strung puppet, he rose. I saw the blackness shake itself as three hands met on Sharra’s hilt. Fire-colors gleamed in its depth, and there was a tall shining in the black mist, that swept on us. The three shadows twisted like smoke. Then, through the darkness, the face looked out. The face I had seen on the black night when terror walked in the Comyn and Linnell died.

But this time I knew what it was.

Long before Ashara, the Keeper, a further Keeper — a woman, born a Hastur, with the living matrix inherent in body and brain — had forged a matrix which should duplicate the powers of the Sword of Aldones. Two identical matrices cannot exist in one space and one time; and Sharra, Keeper of the Hasturs, had thrust herself outside this world.

Yet the matrix, not the living matrix of her brain, but the talisman matrix of the Sharra sword, remained here; and gave her a foothold in this world, through which she could be summoned when telepaths of certain skill should call her forth. Changed as she was, she still had power. And they called her daemon, Goddess.

But Sharra had been bound once, by the Son of Hastur. So ran the legend Ashara had repeated. Now another Son of Hastur, braced to endure the force by a rapport of three

Comyn minds, held the Aldones matrix, intent on forcing her back again.

And under that power, space twisted and opened worlds reeled; Kathie was thrust back first, through the interlocking universes, to her own place from which we had snatched her. And in one thing, at least, the balance was restored.

Now Thyra and Kadarin, alone, together, held that focus of Sharra’s power. They called me to them! I, once sealed to Sharra, wavered and bent like a candle in the wind toward that monstrous thing I had helped, years ago, to summon. I caught desperately at Callina to steady my hold.

Callina faltered. The strength of Aldones’ power ceased; again the confusion, while lightning danced at the heart of the black flame where the Face of Sharra stared out horribly and beautifully between the reeling worlds.

Callina was-GONE!

Only Ashara’s cold, only Ashara’s icy nothingness, thinned against the eternities of space. I felt the triad of Aldones dissolve. Despairing, I felt myself drawn toward the ravenous maw of Sharra…

Then, between a breath and a breath, there was a sharp shattering, as if a crystal broke under a cruel touch, and Callina was there again; I felt her strength, freed, cool and delicate, locking me to Regis again. Held steady. The blue lightning surged up, and our tripled brain was forged, suddenly, and welded, into a Cup. And into the Cup of Power flowed a force and a glory.

Regis seemed to grow taller, to take on height and majesty and the cloak of blue light lapped his limbs.

And clothed in his cloak of living light Aldones camel

Like a white spark I could see the Sharra matrix, blazing out through the metal of the sword that held it. Pointing straight at the coruscating light that circled Regis like a diadem.

Once, I think, Kadarin might have held Sharra’s power completely, and conquered. Nerves and body and brain — it was hardly sure at the last which was man, which matrix.

But Kadarin was human; and at the end, when his sustaining hate of me had faded, I think there was something in him which broke and played traitor; which made him will for self-destruction; which broke Sharra and made the Thing vulnerable.

Two identical matrices cannot exist in one space. While separate brains controlled them, they were non identical enough to remain, though the stress-conditions put the ground of battle in a little place outside space and time. But Sharra’s instrument had broken first. I knew, because for a moment everything that was weak or evil in me fought with Sharra, and for a moment, at the end, I was one with Kadarin and Thyra again, back in the old days. All the immense strength and courage of Kadarin, all Thyra’s beauty, generosity, grace, before the alien horror strangled her womanhood, these fought for Sharra too.

Then the face dimmed to a wraith; Kadarin and Thyra, two tiny, separating ghosts, were flung into each other’s arms, and for a moment I saw them clinging together, silhouetted against the dissolving mist and fires. Then they were swept away, as Sharra’s ghost-face vanished into some reeling hell of darkness, and with it went Thyra and Kadarin, somewhere, somewhere…

Aldones! Lord of the Singing Light! Is there mercy for them, too?

Then that, too, was gone, and I, Lew Alton, was kneeling in the damp dawnlit courtyard, arms around Callina, before a shaking, trembling boy holding a sword from which all the lights had faded. And there was no sign of Kadarin or of Thyra or of Kathie. Dyan lay dead, a blackened corpse, on the scorched paving-stones. And in his hand the Sharra sword lay broken, a few shattered pieces of metal. There was no matrix now in the hilt of the sword. The hilt, blackened with fire, was dull and grayed, and the jewels lay scattered on the stones. The first rays of the red sun touched the castle turrets, and seemed to tremble for a moment in the heart of the jewels.

They shimmered, evaporated like bright spots of blue dew — and were gone. The sword of Sharra was broken — and the power of Sharra was broken in this world, forever.

Regis still held the Sword of Aldones. He was white, and trembling as if with deadly cold. Then, slowly, he sheathed the Sword. A flowing peace seemed to radiate from him, enlacing us in its net. The Sharra matrix had made Kadarin, who was not a bad man or a weak one, into a friend. The Sword of Aldones had made Regis — what?

“Regis—” My lips were stiff on the sound of his name, “What are you?”

“Hastur,” he said gravely.

But the legend said Sharra was bound in chains by the son of Hastur, who was the son of Aldones, who was the son of Light.

He turned away and walked toward the archway. His face was the face of a God, at that moment, yet something less — and more. Supreme content… and awful loneliness. Then that, too, dimmed out, and it was only a grave young man’s face, the face of one doomed to walk forever with the memory of an hour’s godhead — and be forevermore denied it

The rising sun touched his hair-, snow white.

He disappeared through the arched door.

And I saw Dio Ridenow walking from the Keeper’s Tower, slowly, dazed, like a woman in a dream. Now’ when it was over — but I had no thoughts for Dio, for Callina had risen, and drew me to my feet.

And for the first time without fear, I took Callina in my arms, crushing my mouth to hers.

And all desire died as I looked into the cold eyes of Ashara.

I should have known, all along.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Only a moment and it was Callina again, clinging to me, crying; but I had seen, and I knew. My arm fell and I stared in horror as she turned away, desolately. “Sharra,” I heard her whisper, “Sharra… Then it was no use, no use for me, and I cannot live…”

“Not by treachery, Ashara!” Dio faced the sorceress, steadily, “Not by damning another as you doomed Callina! You failed, because Lew was too human, and because Callina was not human enough! You failed, you failed!”

Stricken, madness rocking my brain, I came to where the frail figure cowered before Dio. Callina, Ashara — I could not tell. They blended; were one. Reason swam away; I took Callina blindly in my arms and the form and the face shifted and changed and were now Callina and now Ashara and now Callina again; then a look of peace and my arms were empty, and a whisper faded and died and was still.

“Dio!” I sobbed the name and went to her arms like a hurt child, “Dio, Dio, have I gone mad?”