“Now we will begin.”

“You have never worked in a matrix circle, I think,” Linnea said.

Regis shook his head. After he had come to terms with the reasons he had suppressed his laran,he had never felt the need to study at a Tower. In any event, it would have been impossible for the Heir to Hastur to shut himself away even if he had wished it.

“Normally, each member of the circle focuses her or his laranthrough his starstone. The psychoactive crystals amplify psychic energies.” Linnea sounded as if she were lecturing a class of novices, but Regis did not interrupt her. She was not being patronizing; as she spoke, he felt her thoughts spin a subtle web between them.

“The Keeper functions as the centripolar point for the diverse mental patterns. She gathers them, weaves them together, harmonizes them . . . controls them.”

It was the ultimate test of trust to turn one’s mind over to another without reservation, without holding anything back. To become utterly vulnerable. Could he do it for Danilo’s sake? For Mikhail’s? For Rinaldo’s? Regis was willing, but did not know if he could overcome the barriers forged over a lifetime.

One of the servants had stoked the fire, and now the flickering orange light reflected on Linnea’s eyes and burnished her skin with coppery shades.

I have to try, no matter what the price to myself.

“We will begin with your memories of the attack on Danilo,” Linnea said. “I will not alter your mind, I will only clarify what is there. You may already have the answers you seek, and we need not go farther.”

Regis nodded. “What must I do?”

“Take out your starstone and look into it. Let your gaze rest lightly on it.”

Opening the silken pouch from where it hung on a cord around his neck, Regis slipped his starstone into the palm of his hand. The crystal awoke with a shimmer of cool blue light. On contact with his bare skin, it warmed immediately.

“That’s right,” she said, her voice taking on a hypnotic quality. “Follow the patterns of light. Do not force the memory. Simply wish to remember . . . allow it to fill your mind . . .”

Drawing a breath, Regis imagined himself floating on her words, even as his eyes floated on the light. Deeper and deeper he went, until the stone came alive. Patterns of brilliance pulsed within its faceted core.

“Gently now . . .” Linnea’s voice sounded far away, and Regis could not be sure whether he heard it with his ears or his mind.

As the blue light swelled and brightened, he felt the power of the crystal infuse him. The stone filled him with fire.

“Think of Danilo . . . the last contact you had with him . . .” Linnea’s larancaressed his own psychic energy fields, as deft as a feather brushing the breast of a newly tamed hawk . . .

Regis remembered his first view of DomFelix Syrtis, the stubborn pride of the old man, the dark eyes so like his son’s . . . He drifted with the images.

Danilo standing on a ladder in the apple orchards, wearing a much patched farmer’s smock—

Abruptly, the scene changed. Danilo walking in a darkened street, his figure outlined by lamps to either side. Underfoot, cobblestones gleamed wetly.

Concentrate on the image, Linnea’s thought touched him like spidersilk. Hold it steady . . .

Then he was inside Danilo’s mind, seeing the street through Danilo’s eyes . . . men in fur-lined cloaks, the thin drizzle of rain . . . the smell of wet cobblestones and grime. In his gut, a rising sense of urgency. Thinking,This district isn’t safe for a man alone and unarmed, an innocent with a purse worth the taking. He could just make out the towers of Comyn Castle, glittering above him in the gloom.

“Whatever possessed Rinaldo to wander into this pit?” he muttered.

Peering into shadows, searching . . . Breathing, “Thank the blessed St. Christopher!” as he hurried toward the tavern with its brightly painted sign of stars.

“Dom Danilo Syrtis?”

At the sound of his name, he paused. Instead of Rinaldo, grateful to be rescued, he saw it was one of the Ridenow cousins by the green and gold trim of his cloak. Haldred, he thought, but could not be sure. For a moment, it seemed there were more men hiding in the shadows.

“What brings you here alone at this hour, my lord?”Yes, it was Haldred by his voice.

“I am looking for Lord Hastur’s brother, Rinaldo. He has taken it into his head to go sightseeing and went off without an escort. Or even a guide . . .”

“Between ourselves,”Haldred replied, slyness edging his voice, “that loss would not grieve me much.”

Danilo felt a touch of anger that anyone would speak so of any Hastur. “Be that as it may,Dom Haldred, he is one of our own caste. I ask you in all charity and honor to help me. I do not know these streets well.”

“I suppose you are right.”Haldred stepped from the shadows into the pooled light beneath the tavern lanterns. Teeth glinted in a humorless, almost feral grin. “It is indeed my duty to assist you—”

Haldred’s shoulders twisted, then steel whined as he pulled his blade free.

Instinct and training sent Danilo reaching for his own sword. Even as he drew on Haldred, he sensed a second assailant coming at him from behind, and another—

Darkness.

. . . lying on a thinly carpeted floor, by its lack of vile smells not a tavern . . . leather thongs tight around his wrists . . . pain throbbing through his head . . . voices, too distorted to recognize . . . struggling to clear his vision—the huddled forms of two other people. Sleeping? Abducted as he had been—or even—O Blessed Bearer of Burdens, may it not be so!— dead!

. . . more voices . . .Some time must have elapsed, for now there was but one other body. Slender as a youth, flax- pale hair like a golden waterfall—Mikhail?

I was right!Regis thought. They are together!Was the third man Rinaldo? What had the scoundrels done with him?

The link was weakening, the images falling away with every passing second. He had run out of time.

Rinaldo!Regis made one last desperate cry, throwing all his waning power behind it.

Light flashed, blue and white, and then he caught a glimpse of his half-brother’s startled face. Behind Rinaldo, he spotted not the dimly lit room, but a place bright with off-world yellow light, the corner of a luxurious tapestry of Shainsa weaving. Another man moved in the shadows.

A cry of alarm—“What is it? DomRinaldo—”

Valdir Ridenow!It had to be his voice.

The connection vanished.

Then Regis was spinning, tumbling into a maelstrom of sickening darkness that clawed at his mind . . . dim sparks from Zandru’s own Forge . . . demonic chattering filling his skull—

“Regis. Enough.” Words rang through his mind, haloed in starstone-blue fire. “Open your eyes. Now.”

Without his conscious intent, Regis felt his lids jerk open. Orange firelight swept away the last images.

His fingers clenched his starstone so tightly that the hard edges of the crystal dug into his flesh. Linnea took his joined hands in hers. Her skin felt warm and unexpectedly soft. Firelight turned her eyes to amber.

“I’m all right,” he mumbled.

She released him. Without needing to ask, Regis knew she had seen and felt everything he had.

“Valdir.” The name came rumbling up through his throat like the growl of a wolf. “Valdir Ridenow has taken them. By Aldones and Zandru, by the Dark Lady Avarra, if he has harmed any of them, I will have his blood!”