Sharra's Exile

Callina reached out one hand, lightly touched my forehead, where Jeff had stitched the sword cut. Under her touch the fire went out. I found that I was kneeling at her feet, my head bent under the weight of it.

She said “But would he dare? Surely no sane man—”

I said, hearing the bitterness in my own voice, “I’m not sure he’s a man—and I’m even less sure he is sane.”

“But what could he hope to accomplish, unless he is simply mad for destruction?” she asked. “Surely he would not risk the woman—Thyra, you called her?—She was his—” she hesitated, and I shook my head. I had never understood the relationship between Kadarin and Thyra. It was not the ordinary relationship of lovers, but something at once less and more. I bent my head; I too had been glamored by the dark, glowing beauty of Thyra, so like and so unlike Marjorie. I had chosen. And Marjorie had been destroyed…I turned on her in rage. She said softly, “I know, Lew. I know.”

“You know! Thank the Gods you don’tknow—” I flung at her, in a blind fury. What could she know of that, that raging fire, that fury, ravening between the worlds—

But under her steady eyes my rage dissolved. Yes, she did know. On that dreadful day when I had turned on Kadarin with the desperation of a man who knows himself already condemned to death, smashed the gate between the worlds and closed away Sharra from this world, I had thrust forth with my last strength and brought Marjorie and myself betweenthe world-gates. The Terrans called it teleportation. I had brought us both to the matrix chamber in Arili

I said, trying to think about it calmly without going into the horror again, “I don’t think, if he was sane, he would risk Thyra; but I’m not sure he understands the danger, and if the matrix has them both in its grip— I don’t know if he would have any choice.” I knew how the matrix could control a worker, how it had seized control even from our carefully balanced circle, going forth to do its ravening work of destruction.

“It—wants to destroy,” I said unsteadily. “I think it was made in the Ages of Chaos, to burst forth from control, to kill as much as it could, burn, destroy…I don’t think anyone alive now knows how to control it.” For years, I knew, the Sharra matrix had lain harmlessly on the altars of the forge-folk, a talisman invoking their fire Goddess, to light their altars. To bring fire to their forges and fires, and the Goddess within, content with her worshippers and their fires, had not been roused into this world—

And I had loosed it on Darkover; I, a complacent puppet in Kadarin’s hands. And he had used my own rage, my own lust, my own i

This was superstitious nonsense. I drew a deep breath and said, “In the Ages of Chaos there were many such weapons, and somewhere there must be defenses, or the memory of defenses against them. Maybe, then, Ashara would know.” But would she care, if she had withdrawn so far from the world?

Callina picked up the unspoken question and said, “I do not know. I—I am afraid of Ashara—” I could see her shaking. She said, “You think I am here, safe, isolated—out of the troubles in the Council and the Comyn—Merryl hates me, Lew, he will do anything to keep me from having power in Comyn Council. And now there is this alliance with Aldaran—you do know Beltran is bringing an army to the very gates of Thendara, and if at the last, they refuse him this alliance—do you suppose heknows about Sharra, or will use it as a weapon?”

I didn’t know. Beltran was my kinsman; there had been a time when I had trusted him, even as I had trusted and liked Kadarin. But Sharra had seized on him, too, and I still felt that was why he had this lust for power… and he, too, would have been alerted to its presence.

I said, “They can’tmarry you off to Beltran, just like that! You are Head of a Domain and Keeper—”

“So I thought,” she said dispassionately. “But if I were not Head of a Domain, he would not want me—I do not think it is me he wants. If he simply wanted to marry into the Comyn, there are other women as close to the center of power; Derik’s sister Ala

I remembered the old stories that a Keeper maintains her power only through her chastity. It’s drivel, of course, superstitious rubbish, but like all superstitions, it has a core of truth. Laran, in a Comyn telepath, is carried in the same cha

A woman has no such physical safeguard. While a woman is working at the center of a circle, holding the tremendous forces of the amplified linked matrixes, she must keep the physical cha

She followed my thoughts and shook her head. She said wryly, “I have never had any wish to marry, nor met any man who would tempt me to leave the Tower. Why should I bear a double burden? Ja

“He’s not a monster, Callina,” I said. “He’s very like me, as a matter of fact.”

She turned on me with wild anger, and her voice caught in her throat. “So you’d have me marry him too? A man who would bring an army against Thendara, and blackmail my kinsmen into giving him the most powerful woman in the Council for his own purposes? Damn you! Do you think I am a thing, a horse to be sold in the market, a shawl to be bartered for?” She stopped, bit her lip against a sob, and I stared at her; she had seemed so cold, remote, dispassionate, more like a mechanical doll than a woman; and now she was all afire with passion, like a struck harp still vibrating. For the first time I knew it; Callina was a woman, and she was beautiful. She had never seemed real to me, before this; she had only been a Keeper, distant, untouchable. Now I saw the woman, trapped and frantic behind that barricade, reaching out— reaching out to me.