Without releasing the dagger, Regis swiveled and lashed out with a circular kick. The blow was badly aimed, with little power behind it. The toe of his boot struck the side of Haldred’s thigh, hard enough to hurt but not disable.
Grunting with pain, Haldred tried to pull free. Regis clamped his hand over Haldred’s, anchoring it to the hilt. All he could think was that with Haldred out of action, the Terrans would break off their assault. There would be a chance for parley and an end to the killing.
“Filthy nine-fathered ombredin!” Haldred counterattacked, pummeling Regis with his free fist. At the same time, he jerked and twisted their joined hands.
Slippery with sweat, the hold broke. Haldred grabbed the dagger in both hands and lunged at Regis. Regis jumped back, barely in time. The tip caught a fold of his cloak but missed his skin.
Felix rushed toward the fallen Terran, calling out the man’s name. Regis shouted out a warning, but he could not reach the boy. Haldred blocked the way.
As Felix crossed in front of Haldred, the Darkovan grabbed him. A quick, savage move spun the boy around and pinned him against Haldred’s torso, facing away. Haldred’s forearm squeezed tight against Felix’s throat. With his other hand, Haldred jammed the tip of the dagger just below the boy’s ear.
Not my own dagger!
“Drop your weapons or he dies!” Haldred’s hoarse shout rang out.
As if in a dream, Regis saw the Terran commander turn toward them. Saw the blaster swing up in a move too quick for thought.
Acting by instinct, Regis hurled himself at Haldred. He grappled the other man around the hips. The impetus of the blow broke Haldred’s balance. They went down, slamming into the tile floor, rolling, flailing, Haldred yelling.
The next few moments blurred in a tangle of arms and legs, shouted orders in a Terranandialect, then a silence and a sudden, dense weight. Regis tried to free himself, but Haldred was too heavy. He shoved and twisted, fighting for leverage.
With a wordless shout, Regis pushed again. The weight lifted as Haldred’s body rolled aside.
Dazed, Regis pushed himself up on one elbow. Two of the Spaceforce men dragged Haldred away, one by either arm. The blaster had sliced Haldred’s torso from one shoulder to the opposite hip. Layers of fabric had crisped away to reveal a blackened, gaping cavity. Exposed vertebrae gleamed wetly at the back of the wound. Regis gulped, his guts clenching. No living creature could have survived such an injury.
The Terran commander knelt beside Felix. The boy’s head lolled to one side, one arm flung out limp and graceless. He wasn’t moving, wasn’t breathing.
Blood pooled beneath his body.
“Oh, god,” one of the Terrans babbled, “ohgodohgodohgod.”
Regis crawled over and touched one shoulder, rolling Felix toward him. Blood smeared one side of the boy’s neck and chest.
The hilt of the dagger stuck out below his ribs.
Regis jerked the front of Felix’s shirt open. His fingers closed around the cord and then the silken bag. He hesitated only for an instant before opening the drawstring.
Thrusting his fingers between the layers of soft insulating fabric, Regis felt the hard crystalline shape. He watched Felix’s face for any hint of change.
No reaction.
No movement, no fleeting expression of shock or pain. Nothing.
A moment, a blink, and we are dust . . .
Lord of Light, what could he say to Dan? Sorrywas so pale and futile a word.
And none of this would have happened had he, Regis, not been so weak as to allow Rinaldo the throne . . . Tiphani taking her own son to be indoctrinated . . . the predictable incursion of the Federation forces . . .
Sick at heart, Regis drew out the psychoactive gem. The starstone was warm from contact with the boy’s body. A pale flicker like the dying echo of fire still danced in its depths.
“No pulse!” the commander blurted. Someone else said, “He’s not breathing,” and another, “—can’t resuss—dagger too close to the heart—pull it out, might kill him—”
The commander barked: “Medics here, stat!”
“—never arrive in time—”
Regis blotted out the voices, the hovering figures. The only thing that mattered was that twist of brightness.
If Linnea were here—or even the most novice monitor—she would know what to do, how to start the boy’s heart and lungs. Regis had no training in such techniques, no way to reach anyone who did.
I cannot do this.
I cannot let him die.
Words reverberated through his mind: Light calls to Light.
Memory thundered through him, how he had opened himself—offered himself—to the power that men called the Lord of Light.
And something had answered, had filled him, flowed through him, usedhim to defeat Sharra.
Regis pressed the starstone against Felix’s red-streaked chest. Head bent, eyes closed in concentration, Regis shaped his thoughts into a prayer.
Save him . . . take my strength, use my Gift. Aldones, father of my fathers . . . let my life pass into this child . . .
Regis felt a quickening, a flicker of electric energy, in the stone under his hand. His fingers were sticky with Felix’s blood—blood as carrier of life—blood as conductor and amplifier of power . . .
And then he had no more words, only, Please, please. . .
Power answered. It rang like a crystalline bell in his mind, faintly at first, then louder. Time slowed. Between one breath and the next, the resonant clangor grew until it drove away all other awareness. The sound was beautiful past bearing and more terrible than night. It flooded him, jarred him from his moorings, shredded all resistance.
He had become a single vibrating crystal: the Hastur Gift, the living matrix.
He could shape, direct, use this power as he wished. Or he could let himself be shaped and used by it. With it, he could stride like a god across the face of the world, blasting away all who stood against him. He could remake whole planets to his own desire.
Between his hands, the boy’s life force guttered.
He did not know what to do. He let go—
Light surged through him. He no longer grasped it; he shrank to a speck in an ocean of blue-white brilliance. Knowing it would burn him up like tinder, he gave himself to the light.
Without sight or hearing, he sensed patterns within the effulgence. A form coalesced, at first only a tracery, a suggestion of lines of force. Then details emerged . . . the metallic signature of a long, slender object, the resonances of liquids, gelatinous cells bright with renewed life-energy . . .
As if the boy’s body had turned to glass, Regis made out the dagger as it sat, nested in torn and punctured tissues, the tip almost touching the heart, the severed blood vessels, the nerves still paralyzed by shock.
Live . . .
Power reached through him, not his own will but something deep and sure. An invisible spark propagated through the muscles of the heart. At the same time, the edges of the arteries clamped down. The blood-filled space between the dagger and the pericardial sac took on a new, elastic density, holding the blade in place.
The heart chambers contracted, the first beat rough, but the next smooth and strong, rippling from top to bottom. Blood pounded through the major vessels. The diaphragm shuddered, then clenched under a cascade of nerve signals.
The light faded. Regis dropped into his own body, at once too hot and too cold, too solid and too fragile.
Beneath his palms, Felix’s chest rose in a heaving breath.
Rough hands hauled Regis to his feet. He began to protest, then realized these men had no idea what had just happened. The Terrans saw him as one of the hostage takers, in league with Haldred. Still caught in a maelstrom of grief and guilt and the exhilaration of the healing, he tried and failed to summon words.