“At least show some of the good sense and courage you learned as one! I’m ashamed of you. Your circle would be ashamed of you. Leonie would be ashamed—”
“Damn it, Damon,” Andrew began, but Ellemir, her eyes blazing, grabbed his arm. “Keep out of this, you fool,” she whispered. “Damon knows what he’s doing! It’s her life at stake now!”
“You are afraid,” Damon said, taunting, “you are afraid! Hilary Castamir was not fifteen, but she endured having her channels cleared every forty days for more than a year! And you are afraid to let me touch you!”
Callista lay flat on her pillows under Damon’s hard grip, her face dead white, her eyes beginning to blaze with a lambent flame none of them had ever seen in her before. Her voice, weak as it was, trembled with such rage that it was like a shout.
“You! How dare you talk to me that way, you that Leonie sent from Arilinn like a whimpering puppy because you had not the courage. Who do you think you are, to talk to me like that?”
Damon stood up, releasing her, as if, Andrew thought, he was afraid he might strangle her if he didn’t. The dull-red furnace glow of rage was around him again. Andrew clenched his hands until he could see blood beneath the nails, trying to keep them all from disintegrating into whirling fields of energy again.
“Who am I?” Damon shouted. “I am your nearest kinsman, and I am your technician, and you know very well what else I am. And if I cannot make you see reason, if you will not use your knowledge and good judgment, then I swear to you, Callista of Arilinn, that I shall have Dom Esteban carried up here and let you try your tantrums on him! If your husband cannot make you behave, and if a technician cannot, then, my girl, you may try conclusions with your father! He is old, but he is still Lord Alton, and if I explain to him—”
She said, white with fury, “You wouldn’t dare!”
“Try me,” Damon retorted, turning his back and standing firm, ignoring all of them. Andrew stood by, uneasy, looking from Damon’s turned back to Callista, white and raging against her pillows, holding to consciousness by that very thread of rage. Could either give way, or would they remain locked in that terrible battle of wills till one of them died? He caught a random thought—from Ellemir?—that Damon’s mother was an Alton, he too had the Alton gift. But Callista was the weaker, Andrew knew she could not long sustain this fury which was destroying them all. He must break this impasse and do it quickly. Ellemir was wrong. Damon could not break her will that way, even to save her life.
He went to Callista and knelt at her side again. He begged, “Darling, do what Damon wants!”
She whispered, the cold anger breaking so that he could see the terrible grief behind it, “Did he tell you it would mean I could not… that he would lose even what little we have had?”
“He told me,” Andrew said, trying desperately to show somehow the aching tenderness that had swallowed up everything else in him. “But my darling, I came to love you before I had ever set eyes on you. Do you think that is all I want of you?”
Damon turned around slowly. The anger in him had melted. He looked down at them both with a deep and anguished pity, but he made his voice hard. “Have you found enough courage for this, Callista?”
She said, sighing, “Oh, courage? Damon, it is not that I lack. But what is the reason for it? You say it will save my life. But what life have I now that is worth keeping? And I have involved you all in it. I would rather die now before I bring you all to where I am.”
Andrew was aghast at the bottomless despair in her voice. He made a move to take her in his arms again, remembered that he endangered her by the slightest touch. He stood paralyzed, immobilized by her anguish. Damon came and knelt beside him. He did not touch Callista, either but nevertheless he reached for her, reached for both of them, and drew them all around him. The slow gentle pulse, the ebb and flow of matched rhythms, naked in the moving dark, closely entangled them in an intimacy closer than lovemaking.
Damon said in a whisper, “Callista, if it were only your own decision, I would let you die. But you are so much a part of all of us that we cannot let you go.” And from one of them, Andrew never knew whether himself or another, the thought wove through the multiplex joining that was their linked circle: Callista, while we have this, surely it is worth living in the hope that somehow we will find a way to have the rest.
Like surfacing from a very deep dive, Andrew came back to separate awareness again. Damon’s eyes met his, and he did not shrink from the intimacy in them. Callista’s eyes were so bruised, so dilated with pain that they looked black in her pallid face, but she smiled, stirring faintly against his arm.
“All right, Damon. Do what you have to. I’ve hurt you all… too much already.” Her breath faded and she seemed to struggle for awareness. Ellemir brushed a light kiss over her sister’s brow.
“Don’t try to talk. We understand.” Damon rose and drew Andrew out of the room with him.
“Damn it, this is work for a Keeper. There were male Keepers once, but I haven’t the training.”
“You don’t want to do this at all, do you, Damon?”
“Who would?” His voice was shaking uncontrollably. “But there’s nothing else to do. If she goes into convulsions again she might not live through the day. And if she did, there might be enough brain damage that she’d never know us again. The overload on all life functions—pulse, breathing— and if she deteriorates much further… well, she’s an Alton.” He shook his head despairingly. “What she did to you would be nothing to what she might do to all of us, if her mind stopped functioning, and all she knew was that we were hurting her…” He flinched with dread. “I’ve got to hurt her so damnably. But I have to do it while she’s aware, and able to control and cooperate intelligently.”
“What is it you’re afraid of? You can’t really hurt her, can you, using—what is it, psi?—on those channels? They aren’t even physical, are they?”
Damon shut his eyes for a moment, an involuntary, spasmodic movement. He said, “I won’t kill her. I know enough not to do that. That’s why she has to be conscious, though. If I make any miscalculations, I could damage some of the nerves, and they are centered around the reproductive organs. I could damage them just enough to impair her chances of ever bearing a child, and she can tell me better than I can myself just where the main nerves are.”
“In God’s name,” Andrew said in a whisper, “can’t you do it while she’s unconscious? Does it matter if she can have children?”
Damon looked at him in shock and horror. “You can’t possibly be serious!” he said, desperately making allowances for his friend’s distress. “Callista is Comyn, she has laran. Any woman would die before risking that. This is your wife, man, not some woman of the streets!”
Before Damon’s real horror, Andrew fell silent, trying to conceal his absolute bafflement. He’d stomped all over some Darkovan taboo again. Would he ever learn? He said stiffly, “I’m sorry if I’ve offended you, Damon.”
“Offended? Not exactly, but… but shocked.” Damon was bewildered. Didn’t Andrew even think of this as the most precious thing she could give him, the heritage, the clan? Was his love only a thing of rut and selfishness? Then he was bewildered again. No, he thought, Andrew had endured too much for her; it was not only that. Finally he thought, in despair: I love him, but will I ever understand him?
Andrew, caught up in his emotion, turned and put an embarrassed hand on Damon’s shoulder. He said hesitantly, aloud, “I wonder if… if anyone ever understands anyone? I’m trying, Damon. Give me time.”
Damon’s normal reaction would have been to embrace Andrew, but he had grown accustomed to having these natural gestures rebuffed, to knowing that they embarrassed his friend. Something would have to be done about that, too. “Just now we’re agreed on one thing, brother, we both want what’s best for Callista. Let’s get back to her.”
Andrew returned to Callista’s side. In spite of everything he had felt that Damon must be exaggerating. The
se were psychological things, how could they have a genuine, physical effect? Now he knew that Damon was right, Callista was dying. With a shudder of dread he realized that she no longer attempted even to move her head on the pillow, although her eyes moved to follow him.
“Damon, swear that afterward there will be a way to bring me back to… to normal…”
“I swear it, breda.” Damon’s voice was as steady as his hands, but Andrew could see he was struggling for control. Callista, though, looked peaceful.
“I have no kirian for you, Callista.”
Andrew could sense the tensing of fear in her, but she said, “I can manage without it. Do what you have to.”
“Callista, if you want to risk it, you have kireseth flowers… ?”
She made a faint gesture of negation. Damon had known she would not agree to that; the taboo was absolute among the Tower-trained. Yet he wished she had been less scrupulous, less conscientious. “You said you were going to try…”
Damon nodded, taking out the small flask, “A tincture. I filtered off the impurities, and dissolved the resins in wine,” he said. “It might be better than nothing.”
Her laughter was soundless, no more than a breath. Andrew, watching, marveled that even now she could laugh! “I know that is not your major skill, Damon. I’ll try, but let me taste it first. If you’ve gotten the wrong resin…” She sniffed cautiously at the flask, tasted a few drops, and finally said, “It’s safe. I’ll try it, but—” She calculated, finally saying, showing a narrow space between thumb and forefinger, “Only about that much.”
“You’ll need more than that, Callista. You’ll never be able to stand the pain,” Damon protested. She said, “I have to be maximally aware of the lower centers and the trunk nerves. The major discharge nodes are overloaded, so you may have to do some rerouting.” Andrew felt a chill of horror at her detached, clinical tone, as if her own body were some kind of malfunctioning machine, her own nerves merely defective parts. What a hell of a thing to do to a woman!
Damon lifted her head, supported her while she swallowed the indicated dose. She stopped at precisely what she had judged, obstinately closing her mouth. “No, no more, Damon, I know my limits.”
He warned colorlessly, “It’s going to be worse than anything you’ve ever had.”
“I know. If you hit a node too close to the”—Andrew could not understand the term she used—“I may have another seizure.”
“I’ll be careful of that. How many days ago did the bleeding completely stop? Do you know how deep I’m going to have to take you?”
She sketched a grimace. “I know. I cleared Hilary twice, and I have more overload than she ever did. There is still a residue—”
Damon caught Andrew’s look of horror. He said, “Do you really want him here, darling?”
She tightened her fingers on his hand. “He has a right.”
Damon’s voice was so strained that it sounded harsh, but Andrew, still linked strongly to the other man, knew it was only the inner stress. “He’s not used to this, Callista. He’ll only know that I’m hurting you terribly.”
God! Andrew thought. Did he have to watch any more of her suffering? But he said quietly, “I’ll stay if you need me, Callista.”
“If I were bearing his child he would stay in rapport and share more pain than this.”
“Yes,” Damon said gently, “but if it were that—Lord of Light, how I wish it were!—you could reach out to him and draw on his strength with no hesitation. But now, you know this, Callista, I would have to forbid him to touch you, whatever happened. Or you, to reach out to him. Let me send him away, Callista.”
She nearly rebelled again then, through her own misery sensing Damon’s dread, his desperate unwillingness to hurt her, she reached up her hand, with a sort of pained surprise that it felt so heavy, to touch his face. “Poor Damon,” she said in a whisper. “You hate this, don’t you? Will it make it easier for you this way?”
Damon nodded, not trusting himself to speak. It was hard enough to inflict pain of that kind without having to stand up to the reactions of others who hadn’t the faintest idea what he was doing.
Resolutely, Callista looked up at Andrew. “Go away, love. Ellemir, take him away. This is a matter for trained psi technicians and with the best will in the world, you can’t help and might do damage.”
Andrew felt mingled relief and guilt—if she could endure this he should be strong enough to share it with her—but he also felt that Damon was grateful for Callista’s choice. He could sense the effort Damon was making to create in himself the same clinical, unemotional attitude Callista was trying to display. In mingled horror and guilt, together with a shamed relief, he rose quickly and hurried out of the room.
Behind him, Ellemir hesitated, glancing at Callista, wondering if this would be easier if they could all share it in rapport. But a single glance at Damon’s face decided her. This was bad enough for him. If he must inflict it on her too, it would be even worse. She deliberately broke the remaining link with Damon and Callista, and without turning to see what effect this had on the other two—but she could sense it, relief almost as great as Andrew’s—she followed him quickly across the hall of the suite. She caught up with him in the central hall.
“I think you need a drink. What about it?” She led him into the living room of their half of the suite and rummaged in a cabinet for a square stoneware bottle and a couple of glasses. She poured, sensing Andrew’s remorseful thoughts: Here I sit enjoying myself over a drink and God only knows what Callista’s going through.
Andrew took the drink she handed him and sipped. He had expected wine; instead it was a strong, fiery, highly concentrated liquor. He took a sip, saying hesitantly, “I don’t want to get drunk.”
Ellemir shrugged. “Why not? It might just be the best thing you can do.”
Get drunk? With Callista…
Ellemir’s leveled eyes met his. “That’s why,” she said. “It’s some assurance for Damon that you will stay out of this, letting him do what he has to. He hates it,” she added, and the tension in her voice made Andrew realize that she was as worried about Damon as he was about Callista.
“Not quite.” But her voice shook. “Not in quite… quite the same way. We can’t help, all we can do is… stay out of it. And I’m not… used to being shut out this way.” She blinked ferociously.
So like Callista and so unlike, Andrew thought. He’d grown so used to thinking of her as stronger than Callista, yet Callista had lived through that ordeal in the caves. She was no fragile maiden in distress, not half as frail as he thought she was. No Keeper could be weak. It was a different kind of strength. Even now, refusing the drug Damon offered to give her.
Ellemir said, sipping the fiery stuff, “Damon has always hated this work. But he’ll do it for Callie’s sake. And,” she added after a moment, “for yours.”
He replied in a low voice, “Damon’s been a good friend to me. I know it.”
“You seem to find it hard to show it,” Ellemir said, “but I suppose that is the way you were taught to react to people in your own world. It must be very hard for you,” she added. “I don’t suppose I can even imagine how hard it is for you here, to find everyone thinking in strange ways, with every little thing different. And I suppose the little things are harder to get used to than the big ones. The big ones you get used to, you make up your mind to them. The little things come along unexpectedly, when you aren’t thinking about them, aren’t braced against them.”
How perceptive of her to see that, Andrew thought. It was, indeed, the little things. Damon’s—and Ellemir’s own—careless nudity which made him awkward and self-conscious as if all the unthinking habits of a lifetime were constrained and somehow rude; the odd texture of the bread; Damon kissing Dom Esteban, without self-consciousness, in greeting; Callista, in the early days when they had shared a room, not embarrassed when he saw her half dressed about the room or once, by accident, wholly naked in her bath, but col
oring and stammering with embarrassment when once he came up behind her and lifted up the long strands of loosened hair from her bare neck. He said in a low voice, “I’m trying to get used to your customs…”
She said, refilling his glass, “Andrew, I want to talk to you.”
It was Callista’s own phrase, and it made him somehow braced and wary. “I’m listening.”
“Callista told you that night”—instantly he knew the night she meant—“what I had offered. Why did it make you angry? Do you really dislike me as much as that?”
“Dislike you? Of course not,” Andrew said, “but—” and he stopped, literally speechless. “It hardly seems fair for you to tempt me like this.”
“Have you been fair to any of us?” she exclaimed. “Is it fair for you to insist on remaining in such a state when we all have to share it, like it or not? You are—you have been for a long time—in an appalling state of sexual need. Do you think I don’t know it? Do you think Callista doesn’t know it?”
He felt stung, invaded. “What business is that of yours?”
She flung her head back and said, “You know perfectly well why it is my affair. Yet Callista said you refused…”
Damn it, it had been an outrageous suggestion, but Callista at least, had had the decency to be a little diffident about it! And Ellemir was so like Callista that he could hardly help reacting to her very presence. He set his mouth and said tersely, “I can control it. I’m not an animal.”
“What are you? A cabbage plant? Control it? Maybe I wasn’t suggesting that otherwise you might go out and rape the first woman you see. But that doesn’t mean the need isn’t there. So in essence you are lying to us with everything you do, everything you are.”
“God almighty!” he exploded. “Is there no privacy here?”
“Of course. Have you noticed? My father hasn’t been asking any questions that would make any of us feel awkward. It really isn’t his business, you see. He won’t pry. None of us will ever know whether he knows anything about this at all. But the four of us—it’s different, Andrew. Can’t you be honest with us, at least?”