“Now tell me how you found me here, Regis.”
Regis’ hand went to the matrix on the thong around his neck. Danilo shrank a little. “I thought such things were to be used only by technicians, with proper safeguards. Isn’t it dangerous?”
“I knew no other way.”
Danilo looked at him, visibly moved. “And you took that risk for me, bredu?
Regis deliberately withdrew from the moment of emotion. “Take that last cutlet, won’t you? I’m not hungry…I’m here and alive, aren’t I? I expect I’ll have trouble with my kinfolk; I got away from Gabriel and my escort by a trick. I was supposed to be on my way to Neskaya Tower.”
The diversion worked. Danilo asked with a faint revulsion, “Are you to be a matrix mechanic, now they know you have laran?”
“God forbid! But I have to learn to safeguard myself.”
Danilo had made a long mental leap. “Is this—using a matrix, untrained—why you have been having threshold sickness?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps. It couldn’t help.”
Danilo said, “I should have sent for Lew Alton, instead of the healer-woman. He’s tower-trained, he’d know what to do for it.”
Regis flinched. He didn’t want to face Lew just yet. Not till he had his own thoughts in order. “Don’t disturb him. I’m all right now.”
“Well, if you’re sure,” Danilo said uncertainly. “No doubt, by now, he’s in bed with his girl and wouldn’t thank anyone for disturbing him, but just the same—”
“His girl?”
“Aldaran’s foster-daughter. The guards are lonely and have nothing to do but gossip, and I thought it just as well to learn as much as I could about what’s going on here. They say Lew’s madly in love with her, and old Kermiac’s arranging a marriage.”
Well, Regis thought, that made good sense. Lew had never been happy in the lowlands and he was lonely. If he took a wife from his mountain kinsmen, that was a good thing.
Danilo said, “There’s wine, if you want it,” but Regis firmly shook his head. He might sleep better for it, but he dared not risk anything that might break down his defenses. He took a handful of sugared nuts and began nibbling them.
“Now, Dani, tell me all about it. Old Kermiac did not know why they had brought you here, and I had no chance to ask Lew alone.” He wondered suddenly which of the women in the fireside room was Lew’s sweetheart. The hard-faced girl with the harp? Or the delicate remote, younger one in blue?
“But you must have known all about it,” said Danilo, “or how could you have come after me? I tried … I tried to reach out for you with my mind, but I was afraid. I could feel them. I was afraid they’d use that somehow . . .” Regis sensed he was almost crying. “It’s terrible! Laran is terrible! I don’t want it, Regis! I don’t want it!”
Impulsively Regis reached out to lay a steadying hand on his wrist, stopped himself. Oh no. Not that. Not so easy an .excuse to … to touch him. He said, keeping his voice detached, “It seems we have no choice, Dani. It has come to us both.”
“It’s like—like lightning! It hits people who don’t want it, hits them at random—” Danilo’s voice shook.
Regis wondered how anyone lived with it. He said, “I don’t much want it either, now that I’ve got it. No more than I want to be heir to Comyn.” He sighed. “But we have no choice. Or the only choice we have is to misuse it—like Dyan—or to meet it like men, and honorably.” He knew he was not talking only of laran now. “Laran cannot be all evil. It helped me find you.”
“And if I’ve brought you into danger of death…”
That’s enough of that!” The words were a sharp rebuke; Danilo shrank as if Regis had slapped him, but Regis felt he dared not face another emotional outburst. “Lord Kermiac has called me guest. Among mountain people that is a sacred obligation. Neither of us is in danger.”
“Not from old Kermiac perhaps. But Beltran wants to use my laran to awaken other telepaths, and what’s he going to do with them when he’s got them awakened? Whatever they’re doing . . .” He stared right through Regis and whispered, “It’s wrong. I can feel it, reaching for me even in my sleep!”