Marion Zimmer Bradley - Darkover 21 by Sharra's Exile

Author:Sharra's Exile [Exile, Sharra's]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2011-11-23T12:59:01+00:00

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CHAPTER SIX

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Lew Alton’s narrative

Here.” Jeff shoved a mirror into my hand. “Not as good as a Terran medic might have done—I’m out of practice—but it’s stopped the bleeding, anyhow, and that’s what counts.”

I shoved the mirror away. I could—sometimes—make myself look at what Kadarin had left of my face; but not now. But none of it was Jeff’s fault; and he had done his best. I said, trying to be flippant, “Just what I needed—another scar, to balance the top and the bottom of my face.”

He had gone all over me very carefully, to make sure that the blow to the head had left no aftereffects; but the cut was only a surface wound and fortunately had missed my eye. I had a headache roughly the size of Comyn Castle, but otherwise there seemed to be no damage.

Through it all was the haunting cry that would not be silenced, like a roaring in my mind; … to Darkover, fight for your brother’s rights… and now would never be stilled. Marius was gone, and my grief was boundless; not only for the little brother I had lost, for the man he was beginning to be, that I would never, now, know. Grief, and guilt too, for while I had stayed away, Marius was neglected, perhaps, but alive. He might have lost the Domain; but as a Terran he might have made a good life somewhere, somehow. Now life and choice were gone. (And beneath grief and guilt a deeper layer of ambivalence I would not let myself see; a trickle of relief, that I need never, now, risk that frightful testing for the Alton gift, never risk death for him as my father had risked it for me…)

“You have no choice, now, but to move into the Alton apartments in Comyn Castle,” Jeff said, and I nodded, with a sigh. The house, at least for the moment, was uninhabitable. Gabriel had come, with the final crew of Guards who had gotten the fire out. He offered to arrange for men to guard the ruins and prevent looting until we could get workmen to repair the roof and make the place weatherproof again. Every room was filled with smoke, furniture lying blackened and ruined. I tried without success to close my eyes and nostrils to the sight and smell. I have… a horror of fire, and now, I knew, somewhere at the back of my mind, if I gave it mental lease, the form of fire was there, raging, ravening, ready to destroy…and destroy me with it.

Not that I cared a damn, now—

Andres looked twenty years older. He came to me now and said, hesitantly, “Where—where shall we take Marius?”

It was a good question, I thought; a damned good question, but I didn’t know the answer. There had never been any room for him in the Comyn Castle, not since he was old enough to notice his existence; they had never noticed it, in life, and now, in death, they would not care.

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