Stormqueen! by Marion Zimmer Bradley, Paul Edwin Zimmer Read Free Book Online Page B

himself in his room, letting them call him coward and idiot, refusing to move or take a single step for fear of what would happen, knowing himself a freak, a madman…
When Allart had finally stirred himself to make his long, terrifying journey - at every step seeing the false step which could plunge him into the abyss, to be killed or lie broken for days on the crags below the path, seeing himself fleeing, turning back - Father Master had welcomed him and heard his story, saying, “Not a freak or a madman, Allart, but much afflicted. I cannot promise you will find your true road here, or be cured, but perhaps we can teach you to live with it.”
“The leronis thought I could learn to control it with a matrix, but I was afraid,” Allart had confessed, and it was the first time he had felt free to speak of fear; fear was the forbidden thing, cowardice a vice too unspeakable to mention for a Hastur.
Father Master nodded and said, “You did well to fear the matrix; it might have controlled you through your fear. Perhaps we can show you a way to live without fear; failing that, perhaps you can learn a way to live with your fears. First you will learn that they are yours .”
“I have always known this. I have felt guilty enough about them - ” Allart protested, but the old monk had smiled.
“No. If you truly believed they were yours , you would not feel guilt, or resentment, or anger. What you see is from outside yourself, and may come, or not, but is beyond your control. But your fear is yours, and yours alone, like your voice, or your fingers, or your memory, and therefore yours to control. If you feel powerless over your fear, you have not yet admitted that it is yours, to do with as you will. Can you play the rryl ?”
Startled at this mental jump, Allart admitted that he had been taught to play the small, handheld harp after a fashion.
“When your strings would not at first make the sounds you wished, did you curse the instrument, or your unskilled hands? Yet a time came, I suppose, when your fingers were responsive to your will. Do not curse your laran because your mind has not yet been trained to control it.” He let Allart think that over for a moment, then said, “The futures you see are from outside, generated by neither memory nor fear; but the fear arises within you, paralyzing your choice to move among those futures. It is you, Allart, who create the fear; when you learn to control your fear, then you can look unafraid at the many paths you may tread and choose which you will take. Your fear is like your unskilled hand on the harp, blurring the sound.”
“But how can I help being afraid? I do not want to fear.”
“Tell me,” Father Master said mildly, “which of the gods put the fear into you, like a curse?” Allart was silent, shamed, and the monk said quietly, “You speak of being afraid. Yet fear is something you generate in yourself, from your mind’s lack of control; and you will learn to look at it and discover for yourself when you choose to be afraid. The first thing you must do is to acknowledge that the fear is yours , and you can bid it come and go at will. Begin with this; whenever you feel fear that prevents choice, say to yourself: ‘What has made me feel fear? Why have I chosen to feel this fear preventing my choice, instead of feeling the freedom to choose?’ Fear is a way of not allowing yourself to choose freely what you will do next; a way of letting your body’s reflexes, not the needs of your mind, choose for you. And as you have told me, mostly, of late, you have chosen to do nothing, so that none of the things you fear will come upon you; so your choices are not made by you but by your fear. Begin here, Allart. I cannot promise to free you of your fear, only that a time will come when you are the master, and fear will not paralyze you.” Then he had smiled and said, “You came here, did you not?”
“I was more afraid to stay than to come,” Allart said, shaking.
Father