Sharra's Exile

No. That way lay only endless regret, a time when I would listen and hunger for my father’s voice in my mind because it was all I had left of the past, live complacently with ghosts and grief and guilt… no. Life went on, and someday, perhaps, I would give a damn— for now there were two things that must be done.

“Kadarin is somewhere in the City,” I said to Gabriel. “He must be found. I can’t possibly emphasize it enough—how dangerous he is. Dangerous as a banshee, or a wolf maddened by hunger—”

And he had the Sharra matrix! And somehow he might manage to raise it again, the raging form of fire which would break the Comyn Castle and the walls of Thendara like kindling-sticks in a forest fire…

And there was worse…I too had been sealed to Sharra…

I could not speak of that to Gabriel. Not even to Jeff. I tried to tell myself; Kadarin could do nothing, nothing alone. Even if he managed to raise the Sharra forces, alone or with Thyra… who must, somehow, be alive too— the fires would turn on them and consume them, as they had burned and ravaged me. I could feel my hand burning again, burning in the fires of Sharra— could feel it now, the burning that the Terran medics had called phantom pain— haunted, I told myself at the edge of hysteria, haunted by the ghost of my father and the ghost of my hand…and stopped myself, hard.

That way I could go mad, too. I said grimly to Andres, “Get me something to eat, find us all some di

Andres’s eyes softened. “Poor Li

I had not seen Li

I too had been sealed to Sharra… they could draw me into that unholy thing, at any moment—

I bent over Marius’s body; took the little dagger from his waist. I had given it to him when he was ten years old; I had not realized that he had borne it all these years. In the years on Vainwal, I had not remembered to wear side-arms. I slipped it into the empty sheath in my boot, startled at how easily the gesture came after all these years.

Before Sharra can draw me again into itself, this dagger will find my heart…

“Take him to the Castle,” I said, and followed slowly behind the small, weary procession through the lightly falling summer snow. I was almost glad for the roaring pain in my head, which kept me from thinking, too much, about Li

Marius rested that night in the Comyn Castle, in the chapel, beneath the old stone arches, the paintings on the wall; from her silent niche the blessed Cassilda, clad in blue and with a starflower in her hand, watched forever over her children. My father had cared little for the Gods, and brought me up the same way. Marius in death was closer to the Comyn than ever he had been in life. But I looked up at the Four Gods portrayed at the four corners of the Chapel—Avarra, dark mother of birth and death, Aldones, Lord of Light, Evanda, bright mother of life and growth, Zandru, the dark lord of the Nine Hells…and, like pressing a sore tooth, felt the burning touch of Sharra somewhere in my mind—

Sharra was bound in chains, by Hastur, who was the son of Aldones, who was the Son of Light—

Fables, fairy tales to frighten children or console them in the dark. What had the Gods to do with me, who bore Sharra’s fires like a raging torrent that might some day burn out my brain… as she had burned my hand away—

But as I went out of the Chapel, I thought: the fire is real, real enough to burn away the city of Caer Do

Marius was buried two days later. It was a small procession that rode to Hali; Gabriel and I, Li

He said something like that at the graveside, where it was traditional to speak good memories of the dead; words that would transcend grief and give everyone something else to remember of the one who was buried. I remembered my father’s bitterness when my mother had not been buried here; it was almost my first memory. Elaine gave two sons to the Comyn, and yet they would not let her body rest among the children of Hastur. Now, standing by the grave of my mother’s son, who had been accepted in death though never in life, I found myself remembering my father’s dying cry, ripping through my mind; but afterward… afterward, too, I had heard his last thought, the surprised cry of joy; Elaine! Yllana… beloved! Had his dying mind seen a vision, was there that kind of mercy in death, or was there, somehow, something beyond death? I had never thought so; death was the end. Yet, though my father had never believed, either, but in his last moments he had cried out to greet someone, something, and his last emotion had been astonishment and joy. What was the truth? Marius, too, even though his death had been terribly sudden, had looked peaceful.

Perhaps, then, somewhere, in spite of the galaxy of stars that lay between, somewhere beyond time and space, Marius knew that my father’s last thought had been of him… .fight for your brother’s rights… or even that now, somewhere, he was with the mother whose life he had taken in birth…

No, this was morbid nonsense, fables to comfort the bereaved.

Yet, that cry of joy, delight…

I thought, cynically, Well, I will know when I am dead, or I will never know the difference.

Lerrys finished his short speech and stepped back. I could not bring myself to speak, save for a brief sentence or two. “My father’s last words or thoughts were of his younger son. He was greatly loved, and it is my sorrow that he never knew it.”

Li