The World Wreckers by Marion Zimmer Bradley Read Free Book Online Page A

when next we meet, damisela. You lend me grace; how may I serve you?"
    "I am Linnea of Arilinn," she said, "born in High Windward, and I have worked in the relays here for seven years, Lord."
    Regis flushed faintly. "Then must I have touched your mind many times unknowing; forgive me, I have
    lived long among offworlders and I keep my barriers up without realizing it."
    "Nevertheless, I know what is going on in Thendara," she said, "and I know you are looking for telepaths to work in this project with the Terrans."
    Regis' eyes rested with a sort of relief on the sweet young face and he thought, I wish she were going to be with us there. She would understand. Nevertheless, putting temptation aside, he said, "Child, we have too few Keepers to work the few telepath relays and circles we can command now. You are of more
    worth at your post in Arilinn, working in the matrix screens."
    "I know that, Regis," she said. "I wasn't speaking of myself, and anyway I'm not that good a telepath. I meant—my grandmother was trained as a matrix Keeper when she was a young girl. She gave up her
    post and married when she was in her early teens, but she would remember the old way they were
    trained back in the mountains."
    "I don't know your family, forgive me. Who was your grandmother?"
    "She was Desideria Leynier; she married Storn of Storn, and my mother was their third daughter,
    Rafaela Storn-Lanart."
    Regis shook his head. "She must have been Keeper years and years before I was born," he said. "I seem to have heard the name, but she must be older than—I hadn't believed any of them were still living, that
    group trained by the Aldarans. Was she—" suddenly his face went white as his hair, "was she one of those who raised Sharra in the hills, seventy years ago? Long before the rebellions, of course—"
    "Our family have always honored the forge-goddess," said Linnea quietly, "and we had nothing to do with the abuse of that power later."
    "I know that, or you would have died when Sharra's matrix was broken," Regis said. Normal color began to flow back into his face. "Then, if your grandmother is not too old to make the journey from the hills
    —"
    "She is too old, Lord Regis, but she will make it just the same," Linnea said, and her gray eyes glinted with mischief. "You will find her a surprising person, my grandmother."
    Acting on sudden impulse, Regis drew the girl's hand through his arm as they went into the lower
    Council room. Suddenly, he felt less lonely.
    As Old Hastur had said, much of what happened in the Council room was more of the same. Regis had
    been hearing it for seven of his twenty-four years and it had had a familiar sound long before that. There had been, for almost a hundred years, one or another party on Darkover fascinated by Terran technology
    and the hypothetical benefits of joining their interplanetary civilization. They were in the smallest of
    minorities and seldom listened to. Once every few years the Council, or such a council as there was in
    these days, gave them a formal hearing, thanked them for their opinions, solemnly voted to ignore their
    recommendations and it was all over for a few more years. This was no exception. Regis sat in the seat
    marked with the insignia of the Hastur, the silver fir on the blue ground and the Hastur slogan,
    Permanedó (Here we remain), and looked around the ancient highseats, filled now with the merest
    remnant of the old laran caste; with minor nobility, younger sons, anyone who could or would take responsibility for one of the Domains.
    He could ignore the first delegation, that group of smug businessmen who called themselves the Pan-
    Darkovan League. They looked sleek and firm. Despite their complaints, they weren't hurting, even
    though, he was willing to admit, there were fat profits to be had from an expanding civilization and it
    hurt them to miss out.
    But when the delegation from the lower foothills of the Hellers was ushered in, Regis sat up and
    suddenly