Read Online To Save a World by Marion Zimmer Bradley - Free Book Online

than otherwise.
    None of that. Linnea had simply sensed how difficult his life had become, and through a sudden deep sharing had wanted to make it easier for him, and had offered what she had to give.
    They had stood locked together only a few seconds; but both of them knew how the world had changed for them. Then, the wheels of the universe began to go around again, they fell back into the elaborate games of ordinary life; and Regis sighed, let his hands fall from her cheeks, leaned forward and kissed her lips gently. He said, with infinite regret, "Not now, my darling. Although, if we are later blessed—but just now we need you where you are. There are so few of you girls, now, who can work the matrix relays. How can I put out more of the lights on our world?"
    She nodded, in a serious and infinitely tender understanding. She said: "I know. If too many of us are taken away at once we will be what the Terrans call us, a world of barbarians."
    Their clasped hands fell apart. They did not need pledges or promises for what was so deep a part of them. Yet Regis reached out again and drew her within the curve of his arm, suddenly struck with a spasm of fear.
    A child of Linnea's would be too precious to risk to fate . . . .
    Must I fear for her too? Will she be the next target?
     
    The chieri came out of the forest, dazed and wild-eyed, staring about like some feral thing from the deepest woods. Even on Darkover, where human and half-human had lived side by side since the depths of their world's prehistory, this was something to collect a crowd; and it did. Murmurs of awe, astonishment and wonder were hushed in the streets as the tall and strange being moved, with slow, deliberate purposiveness along the cobblestoned walkway where none of his kind had ever trodden before.
    The chieri were a legend; most people had never more than half believed in them; and as soon as the rumor spread that a chieri, alive and in the flesh, was walking the streets of Arilinn, people came quietly out of their houses and watched, edging back with little silent whispers of astonishment as the nonhuman moved—slowly and deliberately, as if dragging a reluctant way—toward the tall loom of the Arilinn Tower.
    It moved more and more slowly and finally its slow footsteps came to a halt. It turned toward the crowd and said something, in appeal. The voice was clear and light and beautiful, as legend said, but the words completely incomprehensible, and the people simply stared without understanding until finally an old man in a scholar's robe said, "Let me through; I believe he is speaking in a very old mode of the casta . I have seen it written in old books, though I never attempted to speak it. I will try." The crowd made room for the old man, and he made a deep bow to the nonhuman and said, "You lend us grace, Noble One. How may we serve you?"
    The chieri said, slowly as if the words were long rusty with nonuse, "I am—very stranger here to this place. I have been—" a word none of them could comprehend. "There is a Hastur here. Can you direct me to that place where he is?"
    The old scholar said, "If you will follow, Noble One," and led the way toward the Tower. He told his friends later: "It looked at me, and I realized it was afraid , afraid in a way that none of us has ever been afraid. I still shake all over when I think about anything like that , being as frightened as all that. I wonder what it wanted?"
    Regis Hastur was at breakfast in his rooms in the Arilinn Tower, making ready for the departure of the plane that had brought him here, when one of the young matrix workers of the Tower, a boy of seventeen or eighteen, came to his door.
    " Vai dom —"
    Regis turned and said courteously, "How may I serve you, Marton?"
    "Lord, there is a chieri at the gates below, asking to meet with you, with the Hastur."
    "A chieri?" Suddenly Regis laughed. "This language of Arilinn still defeats me at times; I misheard you; a kyrri we would say in Thendara,