All four of the rooms were empty—she could see them all at once, in a way she did not understand—but somewhere, there was the blue glow of a matrix where someone of the Tower kept watch. And then, without a moment of transition, Callista Lanart-Carr was beside her.
Magda knew rationally that Callista was not as beautiful in body as she looked in the overworld. In this case at least she was seeing Callista through the eyes of the spirit and through the eyes of her love and veneration for this woman who was at the center of the heart and spirit of the Forbidden Tower. In reality (but what, after all, was reality, and which was the illusion?)—on the material plane of existence, Callista Lanart-Carr, once Keeper at Arilinn, was a tall, frail-looking woman, her red hair faded almost to silvery gray, though she was not much past thirty; her body was sagging from the three children she had borne, and her face was lined and careworn. Yet on this plane, at least for Magda, Callista had the radiant beauty of early youth.
Magda knew that she did not speak, but speech and sound were irrelevant here. It seemed to her that Callista cried out a joyful greeting.
“Magda! Jaelle! Oh, we have been expecting to see you—”
And suddenly they were surrounded by the others of the Tower circle, Ellemir and Andrew and Damon, summoned quickly from dreams or sleep. Damon’s brother Kieran was there too, and Kieran’s son Kester, and Lady Hilary Castamir-Syrtis, who like Callista had once been Keeper in Arilinn. It seemed to both Magda and Jaelle that for a moment they were encompassed in an instant love-feast of greeting, made up of all the kisses and embraces and tenderness they had ever known, without time or the limits of the body, and it lasted (in reality, Magda knew, a spirt second or less) a long time.
At last, reluctantly, the intensity of loving communion ebbed (although Magda knew in some deeper reality that it would always be a part of her, always renewed and reassuring), and Ellemir said, “But my dears, we expected to have you here more than a tenday ago. I know the weather in Thendara is harsh sometimes, but I have heard of no storms, even in the pass. What has happened?”
With a humorous question from someone—Kester? —wanting to know what pleasures of the big city kept them away, friends, lovers—something like a swift reprimand for this intrusion from Damon—Ellemir’s ill-concealed wonder that anything could keep two mothers from their children—Andrew’s special enfolding of Magda in something that was very private between them, a bond of shared experiences stronger than love—
“Cholayna had need for me, and Jaelle stayed to keep me company,” Magda told them, and swiftly shared the knowledge of the downed plane in the Hellers. Something might have drifted through into the overworld.
She felt Andrew’s surge of anger like a dull flame of colors, crimson and burnt orange, surrounding the outline of his body; she could sometimes see this even when they were both in their bodies. Here it was unmistakable.
“They should not have asked it of you, Magda.” Damn the Anders woman, nothing was worth doing that to you. That is like the Terrans, their damnable Need to Know, regardless. They have no idea of human needs—
“That’s too strong, Andrew. Cholayna made a point of telling me I could refuse.”
Andrew dismissed that. “You should have refused. I’ll bet you didn’t find out anything worth knowing.”
“I did bring Lexie back,” Magda defended herself. “She might have stayed like that indefinitely! And there was more.” On an impulse, she shared quickly with Callista the image with which she had come away from Lexie’s mind.
Robed figures, deep hoods. The sound of crows calling, drifting through a silence deeper than the depths of the overworld…
Momentarily she could sense that Callista did not find it new, not quite.
I have encountered strange leroni in the overworld, now and again, Callista’s memory reached them all at once. Not often, and only a glimmering. Once when I was very ill—her mind edged away from the ordeal in which she had been made Keeper at Arilinn—and again when I was trapped in the other planes of the overworld and could reach nothing familiar. I remember the calling of strange birds, and dark forms, and little more. Your friend—Alexis?—if, in extremity, she teleported herself from the crashed plane, she may have crossed some strange places in the overworld. I truly do not think it was more than that, Margali.
“But what of the crashed plane? And no trace of it found—”
“I have a theory for that, too,” said Damon, and the familiar sensation of warmth, strength, protection (their Keeper, closer than a lover, the figure around whom the Forbidden Tower had gathered, the only one in all the Domains who had had the courage for this, to restore Hilary and Callista to full strength in spite of the laws which forbade a failed Keeper from ever again taking up her laran, their shelter and their strength and their lover and their father all at once)…
Again the disparity from what Magda knew as “reality” and how Damon appeared here in the overworld: in real life, a small, dark-haired, insignificant-looking man with fading hair and tired eyes, showing his age—he was a good twenty years older than Andrew, who was somewhat older than Ellemir or Callista. But here where the things of the spirit were made manifest, Damon appeared to be a tall, strong and imposing man, who gave the impression of a warrior. It had taken a warrior to resist the power of Leonie Hastur, the Keeper of Arilinn, who ruled all the Towers in the Domains with the same iron hand with which her twin brother, Lorill Hastur, ruled the Domains. Damon had won from Leonie, in a psychic battle against terrible odds, the right to establish what was now called, defiantly, the Forbidden Tower.
“I have a theory about the disappearance of your plane,” Damon said. “If the Anders woman truly summoned up, from latency in her mind, a new psi skill and teleported herself—and that’s not impossible, I saw Callista do it when we were imprisoned among the catmen—the pure energy had to come from somewhere. She did not, of course, have a matrix,” Damon added. The matrix stones were crystals which had the curious property of transforming thought-waves into energy without transition by-products.
“Somehow, as she summoned the strength to translocate, to teleport herself, she used the kinetic mass of the Terran airplane for the energy requirement. That energy couldn’t have come from nowhere, after all. In effect, she disintegrated and atomized the plane and utilized that immense energy for the strength to make the teleportation possible. No wonder they couldn’t locate the plane, even with satellites. It doesn’t exist anymore. It’s disintegrated.”
“I think that’s a little far-fetched, Damon,” Andrew argued. “Where would she get the strength, let alone the knowledge, to do that? If she was a trained psi-tech, even from some other world and some other tradition, I suppose she might have managed it. But a complete novice—possibly head-blind? I can’t imagine it. She would have needed help.”
“Maybe she had help, from those stray leroni Callista mentioned; she might have crossed someplace in the overworld, and there found such help,” suggested Kieran.
“Does it matter?” Ellemir asked practically. She was always the pragmatic one. “It’s gone, and I suppose it doesn’t matter how or why unless the Terrans get a bee in their bonnet about mounting a salvage operation to try to find if there’s a record in—what did you call it, the black box?—of whatever it was she spotted beyond the Wall.”
“They’d have a lot of fun with that,” Andrew said, with dry irony. “I used to work for M-and-Ex. There’s nothing out there, nothing at all.”
“Let them look,” Lady Hilary said with the equivalent of a shrug. “It will keep them busy and out of trouble. Some of the Terrans may be very nice people—” and her affectionate look encompassed both Magda and Andrew. “But what do we care what foolish quests they may attempt? When are you coming back to us, dear sisters? We miss you. And the children—”
She broke off, for the little group where they were gathered had suddenly been enlarged by two others.
Kiha Margali—it was like a gentle tug at Magda’s
arm, and Cassilde, a girl of fourteen, fair-haired and blue-eyed, was immediately enfolded in Magda’s embrace.
And Magda felt the surprise in the circle. None of them had known that Callista’s eldest daughter had gained access to the overworld. Young children did not, as a usual thing, have much laran—although Cassilde was approaching the age at which any latent laran she might have would be surfacing at any time.
Am I dreaming, Mother? Kiha—am I dreaming? Or are you all really here?
“Perhaps you are only dreaming, chiya,” Damon said gently, and again his thought, wordless, embraced them all. But she is old enough, we must begin teaching her properly.
But even as their warm welcome enfolded young Cassie, there was a cry and a clamor for attention.
Mama! Oh, I called you, and see, you have come—
Jaelle enfolded Cleindori in her arms, but the child’s confusion astonished them all. Cassilde, at the very verge of puberty, might well have gained access to these non-material planes of thought and spirit; that Cleindori could have done so at five years old was preposterous.
Cassie, my darling, even if you have skill for this, you should not attempt it until you learn the proper way to safeguard yourself, Callista admonished her, gently; and Andrew added, in his kindest and most fatherly tone, Even if you can come here, child, you should not bring Cleindori with you.
“I didn’t,” Cassie began, and simultaneously Cleindori clamored, “Cassie didn’t bring me, I came all by myself, I love Auntie Ellemir, love her lots, but I wanted you, Mama, and you stayed away so long, so long! I called you and you came, and I can too come here without Cassie bringing me, I come here lots, I can even bring Shaya here, look!” Cleindori was crying with loud anger.
And Magda saw her two-year-old daughter, nightgowned, her dark hair tousled from the pillow; she said sleepily, “Mama?”
Half-unbelieving, Magda took the child into a close embrace. Although their bodies were separated by a three days’ journey, it felt as if she were holding the actual child in her arms, the snuggling warmth of the little body, the small sleepy head on her shoulder. Ah, she had missed her, how she had missed her! But Shaya, at least, was here only in a dream. She would wake tomorrow, remembering that she had dreamed of her mother; Magda hoped she would not cry.
“Now this is enough!” said Ellemir, with firm authority. “We see what you have done, Cleindori, but this is not allowed. Take Shaya back to bed at once. And you, Cassie, you should go back to bed, too, you are not strong enough to stay out of your body this long. Tomorrow, I promise you, if no one else here will teach you to do it properly, I will do so myself. But for now, you must go back.”
Cassie vanished. But Damon took Cleindori gently from her mother’s arms. “Listen to me, daughter, I know you are only a very little girl, but since you have done this, we must acknowledge that you are old enough to do it. Do you know where you are, chiya?”
“It’s the gray world. I don’t know what you call it. I think it’s the place I go when I dream, isn’t it?”
“That and more, little one. Have you been here before?”
Cleindori struggled to find words. “I don’t remember when I couldn’t come here. I always came here. I think I was here with Mama and Shaya before I was born. When Auntie Ellemir told me about how babies came, before Shaya was born, I was surprised, because I thought they came from the gray world. Because I used to talk to Shaya before she was a baby. She was all grown up here, and then suddenly she was a baby and couldn’t talk to me anymore except when we were here.”
Merciful Evanda! Magda thought. In childish words, Cleindori had explicated a metaphysical theory that was beyond her, and probably beyond all of them; except perhaps, Callista and Damon, who had studied these things.
Damon certainly understood. He hugged the small girl close and said, “But in that world down there, my darling, you are only a little girl, and your body is not strong enough for you to spend much time here. Do you remember Aunt Margali telling you that Shaya could not eat nut-cake till her teeth were grown? Well, your body is not grown enough for this, Dori. You must stay in it until you know just how to leave it. You must come here only in dreams, little one; and especially you must not try to bring Shaya here until she is able to come and go without your help. Remember how you watched the chickens pecking their way out of the shell, and you wanted to help?”
She nodded soberly. “I did try to help one, and it died.”
“Then you know why you must not help Shaya do anything she is too young to do. She too may stray to this level in dreams. You may ask her to try to dream with you. But no more.”
“But when we’re dreaming we can’t stay here long enough.”
“No, but you can stay here as long as you are able, and it will not harm you. But you must not come here except in dreams, my daughter. Will you promise me that?”
She looked into Damon’s eyes, and Magda, still deeply in rapport with Damon, saw the child’s eyes, and they were not like a child’s eyes at all.
Then Cleindori said with unusual meekness, “I promise, Dada.”
“Then both of you, back to sleep,” said Damon with a gently banishing gesture, and both children vanished into wisps of dream. Extending her awareness, Magda could see the children in their cots, side by side, fast asleep.
Damon sighed. “She is too precocious! I knew it must come, but I never guessed it would come so soon!”
But before either of them could see further into his thought, he enveloped them all again in his concern and kindness. “You must stay in Thendara as long as you are needed. Believe us, we have been taking better care of the children than you might think, from this!”
The gray world was breaking up now into wisps of fog. As Magda felt herself withdrawing from it, knowing that soon the overworld would merge into normal sleep, and tomorrow this whole encounter would seem hardly more than a dream. For a moment, she felt all of them close and encircling her. In the wispy grayness she saw and briefly embraced Ferrika (the midwife had been out at the far end of the estate, waking and dozing by the bed of a woman in labor, and could not withdraw her waking consciousness even to greet her sisters), and also Colin of Syrtis, Lady Hilary’s husband (a brief, sweet moment, momentarily rousing again a passion that had burnt away to embers even before Shaya was born) and then once again, for a sudden long moment, suspended between time and space, she came face to face with her daughter.
A dream…
But of course there is some reality where Shaya is not a child at all. I must always remember that—remember that she is more than just the baby I held in my arms and nursed and cherished. Mothers who forget this do dreadful things to their children, she thought. And then it was all gone into the formless grayness and she was slipping down into her empty half-frozen body.
She crawled closer to Jaelle, hugging the other woman in her arms for warmth. For a moment, roused on a level that was not physical at all, as such work often left her aroused and excited, it seemed to her that she would like to make love to her freemate, all the tender little rituals of touching and reaffirming what was so strong between them. But Jaelle was already deeply asleep.
We do not need that now, when we can have this, she thought, feeling again the exultation of the moment when they had all been around her with that closeness stronger than any other known bond.
And then, with a longing that was both sweet and sad, she wished that she could share this bond too with Camilla.
Do we make love, Camilla and I, because we cannot share this? And why has she refused this for so long? A little ruefully, she remembered what Damon had told Cleindori, and realized that it was a lesson she too must remember.
As she drifted down into sleep, real sleep, Magda thought, I hope I can remember all this when I wake up!
* * *
CHAPTER SIX
« ^ »
A few days later, Cholayna asked if Magda would address a group of women recruits to HQ services. She was glad to acc
ept: at least it gave her the illusion that she was doing something useful.
She had never been really comfortable with public speaking— few Intelligence agents were; their training essentially prepared them for work outside the public eye. The newcomers to Darkover struck her as being very young; it was hard to remember that most of them were older than she had been when she was first sent into the field with Peter Haldane.
Two of the young women recruits were from Communications; Magda had worked there for a time, while it was still too difficult for women to operate independently as intelligence agents on a world with such rigidly structured gender roles as Darkover. Two were from Spaceforce itself. She wondered if these women had known, before they came here, that they could operate only inside the HQ Sector itself. Three were from Mapping and Exploring, and three more from Intelligence, Magda’s own service.
“And now,” Cholayna said after a few preliminary remarks, “I have brought someone here to speak to you all. I’m sure you already know her by reputation; she practically wrote, single-handed, all the documentation for fieldwork on this planet. Magdalen Lorne of Terran Intelligence.”
Magda was nervous enough not to have noticed who was in the audience, but as she made her way forward through the group of women she heard a small, almost scornful sound. She wondered, with a certain resignation, why Lexie Anders had chosen to attend this session. These women knew her only in terms of the Lorne Legend, for which she was not responsible. Whatever she had done, at the time she had done it, she had only been doing what any of them might do; simply muddling her way, from day to day, as best she could, through whatever she was given to do. She wondered, a little bitterly, how many other “legends” were simply victims of luck and circumstances.