Curling in on herself, Marguerida cradled Mikhail’s ring against her heart. Pain beyond words, beyond tears, beyond bearing, filled her.
It is over. I am free…but I will never see him again.
Never say the thousand things she wanted to share, never laugh at the way the morning sun turned his hair into spun gold. Never lie in his arms, drinking in the light of his eyes, as if their joy would never end.
Never again see her children, or hold her grandchildren. Never see her old friends, or that quick hushed nightfall over Thendara that always made her breath catch in her throat with its beauty. Never put right her regrets.
She thought of Jeram, who had tried to save her, even after what she had done to him after the Battle of Old North Road. What could she say to him if she ever had the chance? Could he understand that she and her father had had no other choice unless they slaughtered the entire defeated Terran force?
Did that make what they had done right? Lew felt it did not, but he spoke from his own tortured guilt.
And I, what do I believe?
Life was rarely so simple as pure right or pure wrong. Every choice carried the possibility of unintended consequences. She had made the best decision she could, perhaps the only right decision, and now there was nothing she could do to change it.
Ah, what did it matter? Here in this timeless place, she had lost all sensation of her physical body. She had not the least notion of which direction it lay in or how to get there. She could have drifted a minute, an hour, a year. Did she still have a body to which to return?
If I could only see Mikhail again…just once…
Yet…for a fleeting moment, as she faced Ashara for the last time, Mikhail had been with her.
Marguerida’s practical nature reasserted itself. Just listen to me, wallowing in self-pity!
Nothing was over yet, not while she still had her wits about her. Mikhail’s spirit was somewhere out there in the Overworld. Even if neither of them could return to the physical plane, at least they could be together. Her heart, with its own instinctive wisdom, would guide her now.
Taking the ring in her right hand, she raised it to the level of her eyes. The crystal glinted with inner fire. On the palm of her other hand, the imprinted pattern of the shadow matrix shone faintly, pallid blue-white. With the final vanquishing of Ashara, all other color had drained away.
Mikhail’s ring…her shadow matrix. The two were linked, just as their hearts and minds were connected, ever since that strange journey to the past, when Varzil the Good himself had given Mikhail the ring and then married them.
Varzil had said the marriage ceremony itself created a bond…what was it? Something about the symbolism of the catenas bracelets, locked upon the wrists of the man and woman in the old tradition.
Symbolic of what deeper truth?
Locked, joined… as their separate laran talents had become fused together. Before, they had loved each other sweetly, passionately, with intense mutual delight, but always as two separate people. When they had returned to the present time, however, they shared a constant, abiding connection. They might go about their daily lives, sometimes seeing each other only briefly if things got too hectic, but always she could feel his presence in her mind.
She studied the ring that was the touchstone of her husband’s laran. The great colorless crystal had been keyed to Mikhail’s starstone.
You are part of him. You must know where he is. Take me to him!
There was no change in the flickering brilliance within the crystal or the gray monotone that surrounded her. Again, she reached out, aiming her will and concentration at the ring.
TAKE ME TO HIM!
Silence answered her, silence and utter stillness.
Her fingers closed in a fist around the ring. What good was it if it could not bring her to her beloved? Temper and frustration flared up in her. She wanted to hurl the ring as hard and far as she could.
No, that would not help anything. It wasn’t the ring’s fault it could not fulfill her wish. The ring might have many powers, but it lacked the will to deliberately thwart her. She imagined its sadness at seeing the two people it had united now parted.
At that, Marguerida smiled. What a fanciful thought!
She opened her fist and studied the ring, lying on the unmarked palm of her right hand. “If you can’t bring me to him, what can you do? Why do I have you?”
As she asked the question, Marguerida’s thoughts cleared. Her body became more solid, as did the Overworld. She was on the right track. The overhead light strengthened, and the flat gray terrain firmed up beneath her feet. She felt her arms and legs, torso and head, the supple, articulated strength of her spine, the texture of the flimsy robe that had materialized on her body.
What did she know about the ring? She knew where it had come from. That Varzil had given it freely to Mikhail. That Mikhail had worn it ever since. That Francisco had coveted it.
“Quite a troublemaker, aren’t you?” she said to the ring, but lightly, so it would know she did not blame it for Francisco’s treachery.
Mikhail had used it at the Battle of Old North Road, its power joined to that of her shadow matrix. But that was not its first use.
Originally, Mikhail had used the ring for healing.
Healing…
A shiver tickled Marguerida’s spine, a ghostly hope. Not a sure thing, of course. The ring was not all-powerful. It had not been able to save Regis after his stroke. Yet, if there was any force on Darkover that could restore Mikhail, she held it in her hand.
But he’s not here! wailed through her mind.
Think like a Darkovan, she told herself. Since when has distance made any difference in the Overworld?
The ring itself lacked the power to find him. But together with its counterpart, the shadow matrix that was part of her own flesh…
The ring had appeared in the Overworld in her left hand, in direct contact with the shadow matrix, yet no harm had come to her. Or, she was sure, to Mikhail. Ordinarily, she insulated her matrixed hand from accidental contact with a silk-lined glove or mitten. Now it occurred to her that in the Overworld such precautions might not be necessary. This was, after all, a realm of thought and energy, where only willpower and imagination mattered.
The ring and the matrix existed in the ordinary world as well, but they were essentially devices to channel and amplify laran. Carefully, Marguerida replaced the ring over the crystalline imprint on her left palm. A shock, like living electricity, shot up her arm. Her nerves tingled. The feeling was not unpleasant, but it was strong. She wondered, but only for an instant, at the vividness of the sensation, here in the Overworld, where she had only an astral body.
Mikhail’s ring and her own matrix began to glow, moment by moment ever more strongly. Their combined brilliance stung her eyes. Energy that was neither light nor heat streamed out in all directions. The gray of the Overworld paled, almost to white.
It was, she thought, as if their love, combined, now filled the entire world.
One love, combined…one love, one heart…
Of course!
Joy rose in her. The ring had been unable to bring her to Mikhail because in this place, neither time nor distance had any meaning. He was already with her. Her own fear had created the illusion that they were apart.
Marguerida turned her sight inward, trying to see Mikhail with her heart instead of her eyes. In memory and longing, he stood before her, his hands clasping hers. She could almost feel that sure touch…
Eyes blue as the clear sky of Thetis smiled at her…
Sun glinted on hair the color of new-minted gold…
No, that was Mikhail as he had been when they first met; he was older now, and silver frosted the gold…
The lines of his face came into sharper focus, a face neither young nor old, but Mikhail as he would always be to her, the radiant spirit behind those eyes, that smile…
She willed the form before her to condense into flesh.
Beloved, be with me now!
Gradually, Mikhail took form before her, at first a shimmer, like heat rising in the shape of a man. He seemed to be made not of flesh but of glass. His eyes, as colorless as the rest of him, looked right through her.
As Marguerida watched, a glint of yellow appeared in Mikhail’s flowing hair. His eyes shaded from gray to palest blue. Like her, he wore a white robe, fluttering as if caught in a wind. His feet came to rest on the smooth gray plain. Moments passed as his outline grew sharper. His eyes focused. Yet still he remained insubstantial, transparent.
Lips shaped her name. Marja! Preciosa!
Unable to contain herself, Marguerida rushed toward his outstretched arms. Her body passed through his with only the faintest suggestion of contact, an almost imperceptible crackle of electricity. She whirled around, even as he reached for her again. When her hands touched his, she felt only empty space. They tried several more times, with the same result. Finally, they drew back, gazing at each other across the unbridgeable gap.
For a long time, Marguerida could not speak, caught between frustration and longing. She forced herself to face the truth. She could not hold him, nor he, her. Here in the Overworld, in this manifestation, at least, they were thought, not flesh, insubstantial as ghosts.
Mikhail… She could not bear to be so close, and yet to lose all hope of him.
My Marja. His smile dimmed. Are you dead, too?
I don’t think so. I don’t think either of us is, although I have no idea how to bring us back. The last time I saw you—your physical body, that is—you were still alive, poisoned by Francisco’s dagger, and in a laran stasis field.
Mikhail shook his head, as much a gesture of love as negation. You should not have come looking for me, preciosa. It was too dangerous. But when have you ever listened to sense when someone you love was involved?
I did something rather foolhardy, but necessary, she admitted ruefully. I used my shadow matrix to transform enough of Jeram’s serum to immunize everyone who needs it against the fever, at least I hope so. But I didn’t count on—
Slow down! he said, laughing. What fever? By Jeram, do you mean that poor fellow Francisco was using for his phony charges?
Mikhail could have no way of knowing what happened after the duel…and, she thought, the charges of laran abuse were true, although not in the way Francisco had intended. If she lived, she would eventually have much to sort out.
Briefly she explained how Thendara had been struck by an epidemic of trailmen’s fever and Jeram, the Terran Jeremiah Reed, had used his expertise in infectious disease control to help.
With both of us absent, who is acting as Regent? Mikhail asked. Who rules the Comyn?
Marguerida smiled. Domenic, who else?
Domenic? Astonishment and delight shone through Mikhail’s mental voice.
He’s grown up in an amazing fashion, Marguerida replied. As long as we were pushing him to be responsible—and face it, Mik, we did pressure him with our expectations—he fought us. But when it was his own choice…well, he is as resourceful as his father. He held the Council together, kept everyone from panic, and organized the care of the sick. You would have been so proud of him!
Then we must return immediately, so that I can tell him so. Something in her husband’s words tugged at Marguerida’s heart. She remembered all the years of her own young life when she yearned for her father’s approval.
Marguerida looked down at the ring, still lying in the palm of her hand. Clearly, it was the key to healing Mikhail, but she did not know how to use it.
She held it out to him. Here, take it. Use its healing power to cleanse the poison from your earthly body.
When he reached for the ring, his fingers passed through it, even as they did her own hand. They tried placing the ring on the ground and tossing it through the air before admitting the impossibility. The ring belonged in the same dimension as Marguerida. She herself would have to use it.
Mikhail tried to explain to her how it worked. She did her best to follow his directions, but without any result. She might as well have tried to use his starstone. The crystal was, after all, a type of matrix, keyed to Mikhail’s mind.
Or was it?
Marguerida peered into the faceted brilliance of the crystal. Through it, she could barely make out the shadow matrix on the palm of her other hand. As she watched, the two patterns began to interweave, each enhancing the other, like harmony and counterpoint in music. She heard their combined melodies in her mind.
One love, combined…one love, one heart…
One matrix…
She could not wield the ring, but she could use the shadow matrix embedded in her own flesh, keyed to her own laran. If she channeled her mental power through her shadow matrix, and then through Varzil’s ring…
A ball of coruscating fire burned in her memory. She remembered how it had leaped out from their hands, blinding the attackers at the Battle of Old North Road. Then, their Gifts had been used as a weapon.
Now I need a different sort of weapon. Just as the immune serum changed the particles of the trailmen’s fever virus, now she envisioned a stream of healing laran altering the molecules of poison in Mikhail’s body.
Yes, that just might work!
The transformation would take every scrap of laran she possessed, right down to the dregs, and she knew by now that her Gifts were considerable. What had Lew said, “I would have given anything, done anything to save the one I love”?
Anything to have Mikhail live.
Marguerida reached deep within her mind for her Gift. She found a wellspring of strength, and poured it through the matrix on her hand.
One love, one heart…
One matrix…
One…
She felt the two matrices become attuned to one another. Building on each other’s vibrations, they began to glow even more brightly than before. Crystal fire ignited in their depths. Brighter and stronger they burned, until two spheres of brilliance fused into one.
Marguerida tried to picture Mikhail’s physical body as she had last seen him. He had been lying under a light blanket in the chamber in Comyn Tower, a protective field of laran surrounding him. His face had been pale, his features composed. Even as she attempted to bring the image into focus, it blurred, weak and indistinct, as if viewed through a badly warped lens.
How could she have forgotten the face that was as familiar to her as her own? Had she floated in the Overworld for so long? Had she lost all connection with the physical plane?
During that moment of uncertainty, Marguerida’s concentration faltered. Patches of darkness appeared in the searing brilliance of the joined matrices. They pulsed, red and sluggish, like congested laran nodes. The energies fluctuated, peaking irregularly and falling away.
Marguerida struggled to bring the luminous orb under control, to smooth out the variations. Her efforts were of no use. The sphere was rapidly becoming unstable. In only a few moments, she would not be able to contain its power. She had no idea what would happen then, how much devastation would result. In horror, she realized that once she had lost control of the matrices, she would also destroy the only hope of either of them surviving.
She had built up this nexus of power to be used, but she had nowhere to send it. The power had no mooring, no ties to the physical plane. She had generated it from her own mind, and she was adrift in the Overworld, cut off, even as Domenic had been when she reached him on the night of the Midsummer Ball riot.
Domenic! She had found him, lost and drifting, in the Overworld. What if they were still connected? Could he reach her in the same way?
Nico… she called out to him across the void. Mikhail joined her, his strength flowing effortlessly into hers.
She caught the distant, eager response.
Mother! Father!
Her son’s mental voice echoed weirdly through her thoughts. She could not sustain the contact. She was rapidly losing her ability to concentrate as the shifting energy of the matrices tore and pulled at her.
Hold on! The words formed in her mind.
Nico, where are you?
Here—I am here, in the light.
Marguerida bent her mental focus again on the joined matrices. They no longer radiated unblemished white light. Instead, she looked upon streams of energy, vibrating at many frequencies. Her rational mind understood this was impossible; she could not perceive such harmonics, so far above and below the visible range. Yet her imagination turned the vibrations into a panoply of rainbow lights, shifting from blue-white brilliance, to the green of tender shoots in spring, the blue of Lake Mariposa on a clear summer’s day, the varying crimson shades of blood and lava and the great Bloody Sun itself, the gold of a sunrise high in the Hellers, the dusky slate of basalt, the pale ivory of Temora sands…
She seemed to be seeing all the colors of Darkover.
Vision shifted into hearing. A symphonic blending of sound spread through her mind, even as she had imagined it when Domenic spoke before the Council…
…the sweet high singing of storm and river, the deep, rumbling groan as massive sheets of crust slowly buckled under unimaginable pressures, the resonant hum of the molten layers beneath…
HOLD ON! Domenic’s mental voice now came through, louder and clearer than ever.
Suddenly Marguerida understood what was happening, why she saw those colors and heard that music. Her son’s unique laran bound him to the planet itself, and he was using his Gift as an anchor in the physical plane, reaching out to her through his mind.
The unending gray of the Overworld faded. She no longer stood upon a chill, featureless plain. Once again, she was floating, but no longer alone. Mikhail was beside her, both of them swept up in a single multicolored sphere. Streams of variegated energy, light and heat, matter and energy, rushed past without touching them.
Suddenly, all sensation of movement ceased. Marguerida blinked as the intense radiance receded. To all sides, gray stone walls emerged, as if from a disappearing mist. Below her, a spot of brightness remained. She found herself floating, looking down on her own body, lying wrapped in a her favorite shawl…in the same room, high in Comyn Tower, where Mikhail lay. People clustered around her. She recognized them, even though she was looking down at the top of their heads. Domenic grasped her left hand in both of his. The mote of brightness issued from their joined hands.
Mik? Are you with me? Can you use the power from the ring now?
No, I cannot. His mental presence was very near, as if he were whispering in her ear. But together we can.
Marguerida gathered up the power from the Overworld matrices. Anchored by the sure, steady contact with Domenic’s laran to the physical plane of Darkover, she and Mikhail became conduits for the ring’s healing energy. It passed through them like silk, like sunshine, like a thundering waterfall.
Power flowed first through the astral form of Mikhail’s body, then settled into his laran-carrying nodes and channels. Deftly, Mikhail shifted the vibration of the energy so that it now infused his every tissue, every fluid, every cell.
Marguerida sensed the minute particles of Francisco’s poison like bits of caustic darkness. As Istvana had said, the toxin had bonded to Mikhail’s bone marrow.
As the healing energy shifted, the composition of the particles altered. They brightened, infinitesimal suns, before fading away. Only healthy marrow tissue remained.
On the bed, Mikhail’s body drew in a deep breath. Already he looked less pale.
Marguerida felt a pulse of reassurance from her husband. To return to the physical plane and their own bodies, they had only to follow the lifeline Domenic had created. Yet Mikhail hesitated, restraining her.
While we are still here in the Overworld, he said, there is one more thing that can be done, if you choose.
What is that? What could be more important than to return to life together?
Mikhail shifted his focus to Marguerida’s left palm, where the shadow matrix still pulsed with power. She had encountered Ashara again, with almost fatal results, because of the device. The ancient Keeper was destroyed, but as long as Marguerida remembered her, there remained the possibility of recreating her.
You can be free of her, Mikhail said, if you leave it here.
Marguerida understood instantly what he meant. The shadow matrix had originally been the keystone, the heart of Ashara’s Tower of Mirrors. With it, Marguerida could recreate Ashara’s Tower…or she could build a new Tower, one never tainted by Ashara’s lust for domination. The Tower as it ought to have been. She could place the shadow matrix at its heart, build its graceful walls with her imagination…and then walk away.
If she had never acquired the shadow matrix, what would have happened at the ambush at Old North Road? Who would have defeated Belfontaine’s forces? Would the Comyn have been wiped out with that single bold attack?
Yes, the shadow matrix came with a heavy responsibility, the burden of constant vigilance…just like the Alton Gift. And just like the Alton Gift, it should never be used lightly.
What had Lew said about the Alton Gift, that it was a weapon when all else had failed? Could she leave her world and everyone she loved without the added defense of her shadow matrix?
For a long moment, she made no answer. She did not need to. Mikhail understood her.
Then let us go home, he whispered, a kiss for her mind.
A sense of completion filled her. Then, with a rush like wings, like the astonishing, swift Darkovan nightfall, the last mote of brilliance faded.
Some time later—an eon, a heartbeat, she could not tell—Marguerida returned to herself. She felt her body, muscle and bone, her left hand clenched around a ring. She lay on a bed in a room in Comyn Tower, the same room she had looked down upon. Someone put an arm around her, steadying her. Someone else, with a Keeper’s cool deft touch, gently opened her fingers and removed the ring.
Sound reached her, people breathing, her father’s voice, too low and hoarse to make out his words. Nico, sobbing softly with exhaustion and relief and joy. The rhythm of her own heart. She opened her eyes and sat up as Mikhail came toward her on unsteady feet. Linnea supported him, and the ring gleamed once again on his right hand.
She could not speak, she could only gaze into that face that was as dear to her as breath. Tears and laughter bubbled up in her. Running her hands over his damp cheeks, she gave herself over to the rapturous moment.