Hastur Lord by Marion Zimmer Bradley

features, and distinctive white hair made him stand out in any crowd. Danilo was not happy about this public vulnerability, but he assumed his role as bodyguard with good grace. In a way, it was like old times, the two of them together.
    Felix Lawton improved enough to be discharged from Medical, although he remained housebound. Regis visited from time to time, which allowed him to hold informal discussions with Lawton. The Terran Legate hinted that the newly reconstituted Federation Senate was unlikely to take immediate action on Darkover’s planetary status. They had time to plan their strategy, but plan they must, for the reprieve could not last.
    With the lengthening days, the roads through the mountains became passable once more. Word had gone out about the Senate vote, by telepathic relay or by simple messenger. By this time, almost all the remaining Comyn knew about the new Federation, and some journeyed to Thendara to make their voices heard. Just as Regis was making preparations for an informal gathering of Comyn that summer, Rondo arrived at the town house with a private message that Danvan Hastur had been taken suddenly, seriously ill.

    Regis raced through the hallways of Comyn Castle, Danilo at his heels.
    If he dies, it’s my fault! If I hadn’t provoked him when he was ill, and then ignored him . . .
    Regis could not imagine Darkover without the old man.
    Rondo waited at the entrance to the Hastur apartments. The servant had no perceptible laran, but grief surrounded him like a dark halo. He opened the door to the bedroom and stood back for Regis and Danilo to enter. This time, Regis would not ask Danilo to wait outside. I go to make my farewells as I am, not as he would have me.
    Regis could not remember the last time he had stepped into the ornately furnished bedchamber. By far, the majority of his visits had been conducted in the presence-chamber or the study. Light filtered through the windows with their thick, irregular panes of glass. A film of dust lingered on the polished surfaces of the chairs and desk, the huge blackwood armoire, the immense old-fashioned bed with its headboard carved in a scene of a stag leaping through a stylized forest. Over the headboard, a coat of arms bore the Hastur device, the silver fir- tree, and motto in the archaic plural form: Permanedó.
    We shall remain.
    Rondo closed the door behind them. The room, although spacious, seemed filled with people, Danvan’s secretary, looking very agitated, a couple of servant women, and three or four young pages. One of the women was wringing out a cloth over a basin on the washing stand, and the other was measuring a tincture into a goblet.
    For a terrible instant, Regis feared he had come too late. His grandfather lay so still, it was impossible to tell whether he was still breathing. Then the old man groaned and shifted. Regis crossed the room in a few long strides and bent over the bed.
    Pale blue eyes opened, blank and unfocused, without a hint of recognition. One withered hand pawed the bedcovers. The gesture moved Regis unexpectedly.
    “Grandfather,” he murmured, “it’s Regis. Don’t you know me?”
    He almost expected the old man to sit up and berate him for one thing or another, mocking his concern as weakness. As the seconds blended into minutes, Regis knew this would not happen. In fact, his grandfather very possibly would never recognize him again.
    Regis turned to Rondo, who had come to stand, like a mute sentinel, at the foot of the bed. “What’s wrong with him? Has a healer been consulted? Why isn’t someone attending him properly?”
    “It was a stroke, a seizure of the brain.” One of the women that Regis had taken for a servant stepped forward, goblet in hand. She looked vaguely familiar, and he realized that he had seen her in the Terran Medical Building. She was one of the Bridge Society Renunciates, although garbed in ordinary women’s clothing.
    “I am sorry,” she said, “there’s very little we