The history of Darkover was full of such weapons. There was the legendary Sword of Aldones in the chapel at Mali, a weapon so ancient-and so fearful-that no one alive knew how to wield it. There was the Sword of Hastur, in Castle Hastur, of which it was said that if any man drew it save in defense of the honor of the Hasturs it would blast his hand as if with fire. And there was the sword of Dom Esteban . a mighty swordsman now laid low, unable to use it. But the sword's hilt bore a matrix stone by means of which the skill of Esteban could reach across to the holder of the sword. It was that sword that was to play the key role in the quest of the Earthman Andrew Carr to restore light to the ever-darkening skies of a hostile world. Chapter ONE He had followed a dream, and it had brought him here to die. Half conscious, he lay on the rocks and thin moss of the mountain crevasse, and in his dazed state it seemed to him that the girl he had seen in that earlier dream stood before him. You ought to be laughing, Andrew Carr said to her imagined face.
