Dyan turned his head, and Regis saw the horse-litter at the center of the column. His grandfather? Traveling at this season? Then, with the curiously extended senses he was just beginning to learn how to use, he knew it was Kennard, even before Dyan spoke.
“Your son is safe, Kennard. A traitor, perhaps, but safe.”
“He is no traitor,” Regis protested. “He too was held a prisoner. He freed us in his own escape.” He held back the knowledge that Lew had been tortured, but Kennard knew it anyway: Regis could not yet barricade himself properly.
Kennard put aside the leather curtains. He said, “Word came from Arilinn—you know what is going on at Aldaran? The raising of Sharra?”
Regis saw that Kennard’s hands were still swollen, his body bent and bowed. He said, “I am sorry to see you too ill to ride, Uncle.” In his mind, the sharpest of pains, was the memory of Kennard as he had been during those early years at Armida, as Regis had seen him in the gray world. Tall and straight and strong, breaking his own horses for the pleasure of it, directing the men on the fire-lines with the wisdom of the best of commanders and working as hard as any of them. Unshed tears stung Regis’ eyes for the man who was closest to a father to him. His emotions were swimming near the surface these days, and he wanted to weep for Kennard’s suffering. But he controlled himself, bowing from his horse over his kinsman’s crippled hand.
Kennard said, “Lew and I parted with harsh words, but I could not believe him traitor. I do not want war with Lord Kermiac—”
“Lord Kermiac is dead, Uncle. Lew was an honored guest to him. After his death, though, Beltran and Lew quarreled. Lew refused . . .” Quietly, riding beside Kennard’s litter, Regis told him everything he knew of Sharra, up to the moment when Lew had pleaded with Beltran to renounce his intention, and promising to enlist the help of Comyn Council … and how Beltran had treated them all afterward. Kennard’s eyes closed in pain when Regis told of how Kadarin had brutally beaten his son, but it would not have occurred to Regis to spare him. Kennard was a telepath, too.
When he ended, telling Kennard how Lew had freed them with Marjorie’s aid, Kennard nodded grimly. “We had hoped Sharra was laid forever in the keeping of the forge-folk. While it was safely at rest, we would not deprive them of their goddess.”
“A piece of sentiment likely to cost us dear,” Dyan said. “The boy seems to have behaved with more courage than I had believed he had. Now the question is, what’s to be done?”
“You said that word came from Arilinn, Uncle. Lew is safe there, then?”
“He is not at Arilinn, and the Keeper there, seeking, could not find him. I fear he has been recaptured. Word came, saying only that Sharra had been raised and was raging in the Hellers. We gathered every telepath we could find outside the towers, in the hope that somehow we could control it. Nothing less could have brought me out now,” he added, with a detached glance at his crippled hands and feet, “but I am tower-trained and probably know more of matrix work than anyone not actually inside a tower.”
Regis, riding at his side, wondered if Kennard was strong enough. Could he actually face Sharra?
Kennard answered his unspoken words. “I don’t know, son,” he said aloud, “but I’m going to have to try. I only hope I need not face Lew, if he has been forced into Sharra again. He is my son, and I do not want to face him as an enemy,” His face hardened with determination and grief. “But I will if I must.” And Regis heard the unspoken part of that, too: Even if I must kill him this time.
Chapter TWENTY-FOUR
(Lew Alton’s narrative concluded)
To this day I have never known or been able to guess how long I was kept under the drug Kadarin had forced on me. There was no period of transition, no time of incomplete focus. One day my head suddenly cleared and I found myself sitting in a chair in the guest suite at Aldaran, calmly putting on my boots. One boot was on and one was off, but I had no memory of having put on the first, or what I had been doing before that.