She refused to argue. “In any case, I can see why you feel you must go, but you have no training, and it is dangerous. Is there such need for haste?” She looked into his eyes and said after a moment, “As you will. Show me your matrix,”
His teeth clenched, Regis unwrapped the stone. He drew breath, astonished: faint light glimmered in the depths of the matrix. She nodded. “I can help you key it, then. Without that light, you would not be ready. I’ll stay in touch with you. It won’t do much good, but if you … go out and can’t get back to your body, it could help me reach you.” She drew a deep breath. For an instant then he felt her touch. She had not moved, her head was lowered over the blue jewel so that he saw only the parting in her smooth dark hair, but it seemed to Regis that she bent over him, a slim childish girl still much taller than he. She swung him up, as if he were a tiny child, astride her hip, holding him loosely on her arm. He had not thought of this in years, how she had done this when he was very little. She walked back and forth, back and forth, along the high-arched hall with the blue windows, singing to him in her husky low voice…. He shook his head to clear it of the illusion. She still sat with her head bent over the matrix, an adult again, but her touch was still on him, close, protective, sheltering. For a moment he felt that he would cry and cling to her as he had done then.
Javanne said gently, “Look into the matrix. Don’t be afraid, this one isn’t keyed to anyone else; mine hurt you because you’re out of phase with it. Look into it, bend your thoughts on it, don’t move until you see the lights waken inside it…”
He tried deliberately to relax; he realized that he was tensing every muscle against remembered pain. He finally looked into the pale jewel, feeling only a tiny shock of awareness, but something inside the jewel glimmered faintly. He bent his thoughts on it, reached out, reached out … deep, deep inside. Something stirred, trembled, flared into a living spark.
Then it was as if he had blown his breath on a coal from the fireplace: the spark was brilliant blue fire, moving, pulsing with the very rhythm of his blood. Excitement crawled in him, an almost sexual thrill.
“Enough!” Javanne said. “Look away quickly or you’ll be trapped!”
No, not yet . . . Reluctantly, he wrenched his eyes from the stone. She said, “Start slowly. Look into it only a few minutes at a time until you can master it or it will master you. The most important lesson is that you must always control it, never let it control you.”
He gave it a last glance, wrapped it again with a sense of curious regret, feeling Javanne’s protective touch/embrace withdraw. She said, “You can do with it what you will, but that is not much, untrained. Be careful. You are not yet immune to threshold sickness and it may return. Can a few days matter so much? Neskaya is only a little more than a day’s ride away.”
“I don’t know how to explain, but I feel that every moment matters. I’m afraid Javanne, afraid for Danilo, afraid for all of us. I must go now, tonight. Can you find me some old riding-clothes of Gabriel’s, Javanne? These will attract too much attention in the mountains. And will you have your women make me some food for a few days? I want to avoid towns nearby where I might be recognized.”
“I’ll do it myself; no need for the women to see and gossip.” She left him to his neglected supper while she went to find the clothing. He did not feel hungry, but dutifully stowed away a slice of roast fowl and some bread. When she came back, she had his saddlebags, and an old suit of Gabriel’s. She left him by the fire to put them on, then he followed her down the hall to a deserted kitchen. The servants were long gone to bed. She moved around, making up a package of dried meat, hard bread and crackers, dried fruit She put a small cooking-kit into the saddlebags, saying it was one which Gabriel carried on hunting trips. He watched her silently, feeling closer to this little-known sister than he had felt since he was six years old and she left their home to marry. He wished he were still young enough to cling to her skirts as he had then. An ice-cold fear gripped at him, and then the thought: before going into danger, a Comyn heir must himself leave an heir. He had refused even to think of it, as Dyan had refused, not wanting to be merely a link in a chain, the son of his father, the father of his sons. Something inside him rebelled, deeply and strongly, at what he must do-Why bother? If he did not return, it would all be the same, one of Javanne’s sons named his heir…. He could do nothing, say nothing….