Metas laughed.
It was hopeless. Talk would never convince him. The door opened. They brought Aleena in. She started at sight of her brother, and her face went pale. But they pushed her roughly to a table and began to strap her down.
Allyn shut his eyes against the room, shut his ears against sound. He flung open his mind, cancelling all imagery, so the York folk could come through.
"Jon! Jon of York!" Out against the miles he hurled his voiceless plea. Over and over he called.
Gentle tendrils touched his brain. At first it was like a whisper. There were no words. But the whisper grew—grew to crescendo. It pulled at every nerve in his body, used every particle that composed him. He shook with vibrations. His body was a stringed weapon out of which poured wares pitched too high for hearing. He was blind and deaf and mute—an empty vessel from which poured destruction.
He did not know how long he was gone out of the shell of his body. Slowly, gradually, his trembling stilled. Identity settled back inside him. Sound came back. Over and over, the soft sobbing of his name: "Allyn! Allyn!"
Hazily the room came to focus. Vague outlines of a face above him. Featureless, at first. Dark hair, all atumble, dark eyes aglisten with tears. His cheek was wet with her tears.
"Marva," his voice came hardly out of him.
Behind her the Logicians were grouped, white and sick of face.