Exiled from Arilinn, he had built his own Tower. And Varzil had hailed him as tenerézu. Keeper. He was Keeper, Keeper of a forbidden Tower.
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Chapter Twenty
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Damon had known it would not be long in coming, and it was not.
Ellemir had quieted. She sat in the chair where Andrew had laid her, only gasping a little with shock. Ferrika, summoned, looked at her with dismay.
“I don’t know what you have been doing, my lady, but whatever it is, unless you want to lose this baby too, you had better go to bed and stay there.” She began gently to move her hands over Ellemir’s body. To Damon’s surprise, she did not touch her, keeping an inch or two between Ellemir’s body and her fingertips, finally saying with a faint frown, “The baby is all right. In fact, you are in worse case than he is. I will send for a hot meal for you, and you eat it and go to—” She broke off, staring at her hands in astonishment and awe.
“In the name of the Goddess, what am I doing!”
Callista, recalled to responsibility, said, “Don’t worry, Ferrika, your instinct is good. You have been around us so much, it is not surprising. If you had a trace of laran it would surely have wakened. Later I will show you how to do it very precisely. On a pregnant woman it is a little tricky.”
Ferrika blinked, staring at Callista. Her round, snub-nosed face looked a little bewildered, and she took in the dreadfully bloody scratches down Callista’s face, blinking. “I am no leronis.”
“Nor am I now,” Callista said gently, “but I have been taught, as you shall be. It is the most useful of skills for a midwife. I am sure you have more laran than you know.” She added, “Come, let us take Ellemir to her room. She must rest, and,” she added, raising her hands to her bleeding face, “I must see to these, too. And when you send for food for Ellemir, Damon, send for some for me too; I am hungry.”
Damon watched them go. He had long suspected Ferrika had some laran, but he was grateful it was Callista who had decided to take the responsibility for teaching her.
There was no reason that any person with the talent should not have the training, Comyn or no. Because things had been done this way since the Ages of Chaos was no reason they must continue to be done this way till Darkover sank into the Last Night! Andrew had become one of them, and he was a Terran. Ferrika had been born on the Alton estates, a commoner and, worse, a Free Amazon. But she had everything that was needful to make her one of them too: she had laran.
Comyn blood? Look what it had done for Dezi!
Aware that after the terrific matrix battle he too was famished, he sent for some food and when it came he ate it without caring what it was, watching Andrew do the same. Neither spoke of Dezi. Damon thought that at some future time Dom Esteban would have to know that the bastard son he had cherished and defended had died for his crimes. But he need never know the dreadful details.
Andrew ate without tasting, aware of the terrible hunger and draining of matrix linking, but he felt sick even while his starved body put away the food with mechanical intensity. His thoughts ran bitter counterpoint; he saw again Damon shaking Callista, holding her against self-mutilation. The memory of Callista’s bleeding face made him sick.
He had left it to Damon to care for her, thinking of no one but Ellemir. Elli, bearing his child. He had touched Callista and she had thrown him across the room. Damon had grabbed her like a caveman, and she had quieted right down. He wondered, despairing, if they had both married the wrong women.
After all, he thought, his mind plodding miserably along an all too familiar track, they were both Tower-trained, both top-rank telepaths, understanding each other. Elli and he were on a different level, just ordinary people, not understanding these things. He glanced at Damon with a sense of resentful inferiority.
He killed a boy this morning. Horribly. And he sat there calmly eating his dinner!
Damon was aware of Andrew’s resentment, but did not try to follow his thoughts. He knew and accepted that there were times, perhaps there would always be times, when Andrew, for no reason he could understand, suddenly went apart from them, no longer a beloved brother but a desperately alienated stranger. He knew it was part of the price they both paid for the attempt to extend their brotherhood across two conflicting worlds, two very different societies. It might always be this way. He had tried to bridge the gap, and it always made things worse. Now all he could do, and he knew it sadly, was to leave it to run its course.
When the door opened again, Damon raised his head in irritation which he quickly controlled—the servant, after all, had his work to do. “Do you want to take the dishes? A moment… Andrew, have you finished?”
“Su serva, dom,” the man said, “the Lady of Arilinn and her leroni from the Tower have begged the favor of a word with you, Lord Damon.”
Begged? Damon thought skeptically, not likely. “Tell them I will see them in the outer chamber in a few minutes.” Privately he thanked whatever God might be listening that Callista was with Ellemir and they had not asked for her. If Leonie saw those scratches on her face… “Come along, Andrew,” he said. “They probably want all four of us, but they don’t know it yet.”
Leonie led the group. Margwenn Elhalyn was with her, and a couple of telepaths from Arilinn who had come since Damon’s time, and one, a man named Rafael Aillard, who had been there with him, though he was now stationed at Neskaya. It was incredible, Damon thought, that at one time this man was part of his circle, closer to Damon than blood kin, a beloved friend. Leonie was veiled and this struck Damon with irritation. Surely it was seemly for a comynara and Keeper to go veiled among strangers. He could have understood it if Margwenn had veiled herself. But Leonie?
But he spoke as if it were an ordinary thing to have his chamber invaded by four strange telepaths and the Keeper of Arilinn. “Kinswoman, you lend me grace. How may I serve you?”
Leonie said bluntly, “Damon, you were sent from Arilinn years ago. You have laran, and you have been trained in the use of a matrix, so you may not be forbidden to use it for such personal purposes as are lawful. But the law forbids that any serious matrix operations shall be undertaken outside the safeguards of a Tower. And now you have used your matrix to kill.”
As a matter of fact, he thought, it had been Callista who killed Dezi. But that didn’t matter. It was his responsibility. He said so.
“I am regent of Alton. I put to death, lawfully, a murderer who had killed one and attempted to kill another within the Domain. I claim privilege.”
“Privilege denied,” Margwenn said. “You should have slain him in a lawful duel, with legitimate weapons. You are not empowered, outside a Tower, to use a matrix for an execution.”
“The attempted murder, and the murder, were both done by matrix. Being Tower-trained, I am sworn to prevent such misuse.”
“Misuse to prevent misuse, Damon?”
“I deny that it was misuse.”
“That decision was not yours to make,” Rafael Aillard said. “If Dezi had broken the laws of Arilinn—and from what I knew of him I find it easy to believe, but that is neither here nor there—you should have laid it before us, and left it to us to take action.”
Damon’s answer was monosyllabic and obscene. Andrew had never believed Damon would speak so in the presence of women. “The first offense was committed in my presence. He sought to force his will on my sworn brother, driving him into a storm without shelter; only good luck saved him from death. And now he has slain my wife’s brother, the heir to Alton, and everyone came near to letting it pass as an unlucky accident! Who but I should deal the punishment? All my life I have been taught that it is my responsibility to deal with an offense against kin. Or what else is Comyn?”
“But,” said Leonie, “your training was given you for use within a Tower. When you were sent forth—”
“When I was sent forth, was I to spend the rest of my life without the knowledge and skill of my training? If I could not be trusted
with the knowledge, why was it given? Should I live the rest of my life like a toddler in a walking-harness, not moving unless my nurse holds the reins?” He looked directly at Leonie. He did not say it aloud, but everyone there could follow it: I should never have been sent from Arilinn. I was dismissed upon a pretext which I now know to have been false. Aloud he said, “When I was sent away, I was set free to act upon my own responsibility, like any Comyn son.”
And even now, Leonie, you will not face me.
How dare you! The woman put back her veil. She had, Damon thought with detachment, quite lost the last remnants of her remarkable beauty. She drew herself to her full height—an inch or two taller than Damon—and said, “I will not hear this quibbling!”
Damon said with cold, deliberate insolence, “I did not invite any of you here. Is the guardian of Alton to listen and keep his tongue behind his teeth, like a naughty child being scolded, in his own chamber?”
Leonie frowned. “Would you rather we formally lay these matters before all the Comyn in the Crystal Chamber?”
Damon shrugged and said, “Speak, then.” He nodded to chairs about the room. “Will you sit? I have no taste for discussing weighty matters while I stand shifting from one foot to another like a cadet on punishment detail. And may I offer you refreshment?”
“Thank you, no.” But they took chairs, and Damon sank into another. Andrew remained standing. Without knowing it, he had fallen into the traditional stance of a paxman behind his lord, a step behind where Damon sat. The others saw it and frowned, as Leonie began.
“When you left Arilinn, we trusted you to observe the laws, and in general we made no complaint. From time to time we followed your matrix in the monitor screens, but most of the things you had done were minor and lawful.”
“Excellent,” said Damon with sarcastic emphasis. “I am relieved to know you thought it lawful for me to use my matrix to lock my strongbox, to find my way through a wood if I mistook my path, or to stanch the bleeding of a friend’s wound!”
Rafael Aillard scowled at Damon. “If you will hear us without trying to make bad jokes, we will have done with this painful task more quickly!”
Damon said, “I am not short of time to hear what you have to say. Still, my wife is ill and pregnant, and my father-in-law at death’s very threshold, so it is true I could spend what remains of this day more profitably than listening to this pile of stable-sweepings you are mouthing at me!”
“I am sorry Ellemir is not well,” Leonie said, “but is Esteban so seriously ill as all that? In the Council chamber but this day, he was hearty and strong.”
His mouth set in hard lines, Damon said, “The news of the treachery done by the bastard son he had loved laid him low. It is possible he will live through the day, but he is not likely to see another winter’s snow.”
“So you took it on yourself to avenge him and act as Dezi’s executioner,” Leonie said. “I have no grief for him. He had not been in Arilinn a tenday before I saw such flaws in his character that I knew he would not stay.”
“And, knowing this, you took the responsibility of training him? Who picks a tool unsuited to a task should not complain if it does nothing more than cut the hand that holds it.” Remotely he realized that as recently as Midwinter, it would have been unthinkable to question the motives and decisions of any Keeper, certainly not the Lady of Arilinn.
Margwenn said impatiently, “What would you have had us do? You know it is not easy to find Comyn sons and daughters with full laran, and whatever Dezi’s faults, his gifts were great.”
“You would have done better to train a commoner with less of noble blood, and more of decency and character!”
Rafael said, “You know that no one not of Comyn blood can come within the Veil at Arilinn.”
“Then, damn it,” said Damon, thinking of Ferrika’s gentle touch as she monitored Ellemir, “maybe it’s time to tear down the Veil and make some changes at Arilinn!”
Leonie’s lip curled in distaste. “Where do you get these ideas, Damon? Is this what comes of taking a Terranan into your household?” But she gave him no time to answer.
“We did not complain when you used your matrix lawfully. Even when you took Dezi’s matrix from him, we made no complaint. But you were not content with that. You have done many things unlawful. You have taught this Terranan some rudiments of matrix technology. You will recall that Stefan Hastur decreed, when first they came here, that no Terran was even to be allowed to witness any matrix operation.”
“May he rest in peace,” Damon said, “but I am not willing to give to a dead man the right to be the warden of my conscience.”
Rafael said angrily, “Should we reject the wisdom of our fathers?”
“No, but they lived as they chose when they were alive, and did not consult me about my wishes and needs, and I shall do the same with them. Certainly I will not enshrine them as gods, and treat their lightest word as the cristoforos treat the nonsense from their Book of Burdens!”
“What is your excuse for training this Terranan?” Margwenn asked.
“What excuse do I need? He has laran, and an untrained telepath is a menace to himself and to everyone around him.”
“Was it he who encouraged Callista to break her sworn word? She had pledged to lay down her work forever.”
“I am not the warden of Callista’s conscience either,” Damon said. “The knowledge is in her mind, I cannot take it from her.” Again, with great bitterness, he flung the question at Leonie: “Should she spend her life counting holes in linen towels, and making spices for herb-bread?”
Margwenn grimaced with contempt. “It seems that was Callista’s choice. She was not forced to give back her oath. She was not even raped. She made a free choice, and she must live with it.”
You are all fools, Damon thought wearily, and made no effort to conceal the thought. He saw it reflected in Leonie’s eyes.
“One charge is so serious that it makes all the others trivial, Damon. You have built a Tower in the overworld. You are working an unlawful mechanic’s circle, Damon, outside a Tower builded by Comyn decree, and outside the oaths and safeguards ordained since the Ages of Chaos. The penalty for that is a dreadful one. I am reluctant to impose it on you. Will you, then, dissolve the links of your circle, destroy the forbidden Tower you have made, and swear to us that you will do so no more? If you will pledge this to me, I will ask no further penalty.”
Damon rose to his feet. He was standing braced, as he had done when he faced Dezi’s murderous onslaught. This, he thought, I face standing up.
“Leonie, when you sent me from the Tower, you ceased to be my Keeper, even the keeper of my conscience. What I have done, I have done on my own responsibility. I am a matrix technician, trained at Arilinn, and I have lived all my life under the precepts taught to me there. My conscience is clear, I will make no such pledge as you ask.”
“Since the Ages of Chaos,” Leonie said, “it has been forbidden for any circle of matrix workers to operate except in a Tower sanctioned by Comyn decree. Nor can we allow you to take into your circle a woman who once was Keeper and who has given back her oath. By the laws handed down since the days of Varzil the Good, this is not allowed. It is unthinkable, it is obscene! You must destroy the Tower, Damon, and pledge me never to work with it again. As regent of Alton, and Callista’s guardian, I call upon you to make certain that she never again violates the conditions upon which her oath was given back.”
Damon said, keeping his voice steady with an effort, “I do not accept your judgment.”
“Then I must invoke a worse,” Leonie said. “Do you wish me to lay this before the Council, and the workers in all the Towers? You know the penalty if you are adjudged guilty there. Once all this is set in motion, even I cannot save you,” she added, looking directly at him for the first time since the conversation had begun. “But I know that if you give your word, you will not break it. Give me your word, Damon, to break this unlawful circle, to withdraw all forc
e from your Tower in the overworld, and pledge me personally to use your matrix from this day forth only for such things as are lawful and come within the limits allotted; and I give you my word in turn that I will proceed no further, whatever you have done.”
Your word, Leonie? What is your word worth?
It was like a blow in the face. The Keeper turned pale. Her voice was trembling. “You defy me, Damon?”
“I do,” he said. “You have never inquired into my motives, you have chosen to ignore them. You talk of Varzil the Good. I do not think you know half as much about him as I do. Yes, I defy you, Leonie. I will answer these charges at the proper time. Lay them before the Council, if it pleases you, or before the Towers, and I will be ready to answer them.”
Her face was deathly white. Like a skull, Damon thought.
“Be it so then, Damon. You know the penalty. You will be stripped of your matrix, and so that you cannot do as Dezi has done, the laran centers of your brain will be burned away. On your own head be it, Damon, and all of these may bear witness that I tried to save you.”
She turned, moving out of the chamber. The others followed in her wake. Damon stood unmoving, his face rigid and unyielding, till they were gone. He managed to maintain the cold dignity until the sound of their steps in the outer rooms had died away. Then, moving like a drunken man, he reeled into the inner room of the suite.
He heard Andrew cursing, a steady stream of expletives in what he supposed was Terran—he did not know a word of the language—but no one with laran could possibly misunderstand their meaning. He moved past Andrew, flung himself facedown on a divan, and lay there, his face in his hands, not moving. Horror surged in him; his stomach heaved with nausea.
All his defiance now seemed a child’s bravado. He knew, beyond doubt or question, that he would find no way to answer the charges, that they would find him guilty, that he would incur the penalty.
Blinded. Deafened. Mutilated. To go through life without laran, prisoner forever in his own skull, intolerably alone forever… to live as a mindless animal. He clutched himself in agony. Andrew came and stood beside him, troubled, only partially aware what was distressing him.
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