I hugged her close and said, “The minute he sees you my father will be delighted to arrange all that.”
“I know,” she said, “but I’d rather have it here.” The thought warmed me more than the fire. We ate the hot soup before the fire. We had to share one spoon and eat it straight from the old kettle. We had little fuel and the fire burned down quickly, but as it sank into darkness Marjorie whispered, “Our first fireside.”
I knew what she meant. It was not the formal ceremony, di catenas, the elaborate wedding-feast for my kin, her proclamation before Comyn Council, that would make her my wife. Everywhere in the hills, where ceremonies are few and witnesses sparse, the purposeful sharing of “a bed, a meal, a fireside” acknowledges the legal status of a marriage, and I knew why Marjorie had risked losing her way in the snow to kindle a fire and cook us up some soup. By the simple laws of the hills, we were wedded, not in our own eyes alone, but in a ceremony that would stand in the eyes of all men. I was glad she had been sure enough of me to do this
; without asking. I was glad the weather kept us here for another night. But something was troubling me. I said, “Regis and Danilo are nearer to Thendara now than we are to Arilinn, unless they have been recaptured. But neither of them is a skilled telepath, and I doubt if a message has gone through. I should send a message, either to Arilinn or to my father. I should have done it before.”
She caught my hand as I pulled the matrix from its resting place. “Lew, is it really safe?”
“I must, love, safe or not. I should have done it the moment I had my matrix back. We must face the possibility that they will try again. Beltran won’t abandon his aims so quickly, and I fear Kadarin is unscrupulous.” I backed off from speaking the name of Sharra aloud, but it was there between us and we both knew it.
: And if they did try again, without my knowledge or control, without Marjorie for Keeper, what then? Playing with forest fire would be child’s play, next to the risk of waking that thing without a trained Keeper! I had to warn the towers.
She said hesitantly, “We were all in rapport. If you … use your matrix … can they feel it, trail us that way?”
That was a possibility, but whatever happened to us, Sharra must be controlled and contained, or none of us would ever be safe again. And in all these days I had sensed no touch, no seeking mind.
I drew out the matrix and uncovered it. To my dismay, I felt a faint, twisting tinge of sickness as I gazed into the blue depths. That was a danger signal. Perhaps during the days I had been separated from it, I had become somewhat unkeyed. I focused on it, steadying my mind to the delicate task of establishing rapport again with the starstone; again and again I was forced to turn my eyes away by the pain, the blurring of vision.
“Leave it, Lew, leave it, you’re too tired—”
“I cannot.” If I delayed, I would lose mastery of the matrix, be forced to begin again with another stone. I fought the matrix for nearly an hour, struggling with my inability to focus it. I looked at Marjorie with regret, knowing that I was draining my strength with this telepathic struggle. I cursed the fate that had made me a telepath and a matrix mechanic, but it never occurred to me that I should abandon the struggle unfinished.
If this had—unimaginably—happened in Arilinn, I would have been given kirian or one of the other psi-activator drugs and helped by a psi monitor and my own Keeper. Now I had to master it alone. I myself had made it impossible and dangerous for Marjorie to help me.
At last, my head splitting, I managed to focus the lights in the stone. Quickly, while I still had the strength, I reached out through the gray and formless spaces that we call the underworld, looking for the light-landmark that was the relay-circle at Arilinn.