The Alton Gift by Marion Z. Bradley Read Free Book Online

wilfulness, but she no longer started fires or threw pottery at the wall with her mind. In fact, she seemed to have effectively suppressed her laran . It did not distress her, so I assumed the Keepers knew what they were doing."
    And jour premonition about her?
    She favored him with a wry smile. "You know me too well, Father. As you may have suspected, it has never entirely resolved, and now the sense of oncoming danger has returned. I don't know why. Alanna is much as she has always been. She is difficult, true, but her heart is good. She can be sweet and loving as well as contrary. I cannot see how she poses any greater threat now than she did before."
    Lew sat back, rubbing his jaw with his one hand. "Are you sure your foreboding relates to Alanna?"
    "What else?" She got up in a quick restless movement, tugging at the glove on her left hand, and began pacing. "The Domains are at peace, Francisco Ridenow is safely in exile, and the Terrans and that hideous Lyle Belfontaine are gone. After the Battle of Old North Road, they are not likely to return any time soon."
    Memories, like a swarm of horrific ghosts, rose up in Lew's mind. The Terran ambush at Old North Road had been the last spiteful act of Acting Station Chief Lyle Belfontaine. The departing bureaucrat had almost destroyed Darkover's ruling Council as they rode to the funeral of Regis Hastur. What it might have meant for Darkover to lose so many Gifted minds at a single stroke was too terrible to contemplate. Combining their psychic powers, channeled through Mikhail's ring and Marguerida's shadow matrix, the two had defeated the attempt. And afterward…
    Lew's gut clenched at the memory. After the battle, he and Marguerida had used their special talent, the Alton Gift of forced rapport, to selectively erase the memories of the Terran survivors, so that they remembered nothing extraordinary about the battle.
    There was no other option, he told himself for the hundredth time. If the Federation ever found out what Darkovan laran could do, how it could be used as a weapon, any hope for his world remaining inde-
    pendent and free would swiftly come to an end. Afterward, Lew had gotten sickeningly drunk for the first time in years.
    Marguerida was right. They had bought this current era of peace at a terrible price, but no enemies remained to threaten the Domains. The Terran Federation was gone, consumed by internecine war. Alanna offered no immediate threat. She had spirit, yes, and rebellion, but nothing worse.
    And jet . . .
    What if Marguerida perceived the approach of some other danger? Something perhaps masquerading as good? Had not great evil been done in the name of worthy causes? Was that not the story of the Ages of Chaos? Of Caer Donn and the flames of Sharra? Of the Battle of Old North Road?
    Ghosts , he thought. Nothing more .
    The conversation veered to inconsequential matters. Domenic and Yllana came in, chattering with the ease of affectionate siblings too long separated, something about Yllana's attempt to compose a new ballad about the spaceman, the chieri , and the Dry Towner's wife. Lew was surprised to see how both his grandchildren had grown. Domenic bowed politely, with a only a trace of the gangling awkwardness of a few years ago. Something in his reserve reminded Lew of Regis at that age. A hint of watchfulness around the eyes suggested that Domenic felt things deeply and that he had not yet found his place. Lew's heart went out to the boy, so clearly struggling to become a man, with all the uncertainties, conflicting emotions, and demands placed upon him.
    As for Yllana, she would not look directly at Lew, clearly trying hard not to stare.
    What did she see? Lew wondered. He knew what he looked like, a man aged beyond his years, a cripple with a face of scars, a mouth cut and twisted into a perpetual grimace, a man sick in his very soul…
    "Ah, here is Mikhail," Marguerida said.
    Mikhail entered, talking intently with his paxman, Donal Alar.