A World Divided

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  Elorie said, shaking her head, “Dyan knew from Kennard something of the ways of the Forbidden Tower. The children were unlike; perhaps he thought one of them, being dark-haired and dark-eyed, was the son of the Terran; and he helped you only to reclaim the one he believed to be Arnad Ridenow’s son.”

  “It is true that we acknowledged Auster as son to Arnad Ridenow,” Hastur said. “He had the Ridenow gift; but he could have had it through Cassilde, who was Callista Lanart-Carr’s daughter by Damon Ridenow.” He shook his head with a sigh.

  “The thing is, Lord Hastur,” Jeff said, “that I thought I was the time-bomb the Terrans had planted; and it’s Auster. And he is still in the matrix circle at Arilinn!”

  “But he has laran! He grew up among us! He is Comyn!” Hastur said in dismay, and Kerwin shook his head.

  “No. He is Jeff Kerwin’s son,” Kerwin said, “and I’m not.” Auster, then, had been his foster-brother; they had played together as children. He did not like Auster; but he owed him loyalty. Yes, and love—for Auster was the son of the man who had given him name and place in the Terran Empire. Auster was his brother, and more, his friend within the matrix circle. He did not want Auster used to break the Arilinn Tower.

  “But—a Terran? In Arilinn?”

  “He thought he was Comyn,” Kerwin said, a curious yeasting excitement boiling within him as he began to understand. “He believed he was Comyn, he expected to have laran—and so he had it, he never developed any mental block against believing in his own psi powers!”

  “But don’t you see,” Elorie interrupted. “We have to warn them at Arilinn! They may try the mining operation—and Auster is still linked to Ragan—and it will fail!”

  Hastur looked pale. “Yes,” he said. “They sent the little Keeper from Neskaya there—and they were going to try it tonight.”

  “Tonight,” Elorie gasped. “We’ve got to warn them! It’s their only chance!”

  Kerwin’s thoughts were bitter as they flew through the night. Rain beat and battered at the little airship; a strange young Comyn knelt in the front of the machine, controlling it, but Kerwin had neither eyes nor thought for him.

  They had tried to warn Arilinn through the relay screen high in Comyn Castle; but Arilinn had already been taken out of the relay net. Neskaya Tower had told them that they had closed the relays to Arilinn three days ago, when they had sent for Callina Lindir.

  So he was going back to Arilinn. Going, after all, to warn them, perhaps to save them—for there was no question that this, the greatest of the Tower operations, was the primary target of the Terrans who wanted Arilinn to fail; fail, so that the Domains would fall into the hands of the Terran advisers, engineers, industrialists.

  The young Comyn flying the ship had looked with reverence at Elorie when the name of Arilinn was spoken. It seemed that they all knew about the tremendous experiment at Arilinn, which might keep Darkover and the Domains out of the hands of the Terran Empire.

  But it would fail. They were racing through the night to stop it before it started; but if they didn’t do it at all, it would be default, and default would have the same weight as failure, which was why they were trying this desperate experiment with a half-trained Keeper. Either way, it meant the end of the Darkover they knew.

  If only I had never come back to Darkover!

  “Don’t, Jeff,” she said softly. “It’s not fair to blame yourself.”

  But he did. If he had not come back, they might have found someone else to take the vacant place at Arilinn. And Auster, without Jeff to antagonize him, would perhaps have discovered the truth about the Terran spy. But now they were all bound to abide by the success or failure of this experiment; and if it failed—and it would fail—then they were all pledged, on the word of Hastur, to offer no more resistance to Terran industrialization, Terran trade, the Terran culture, the Terran way.

  Without Kerwin to lend them this false confidence, the Terran’s spying would have yielded only minor information.

  Elorie’s hand felt cold as ice in his. Without asking, Kerwin wrapped his fur-lined cloak around her, remembering against his will one of Johnny Eller’s stories. He could shelter Elorie against physical cold in his Darkovan cloak; but now that he knew he had no more right to his Terran citizenship than to Arilinn, where could he take her?

  She pointed through the window of the plane. “Arilinn,” she said, “and there is the Tower.” Then she drew a deep breath of consternation and despair; for, faintly around the Tower, he could see a bluish, flickering, iridescence.

  “We’re too late,” she whispered. “They’ve already started!”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The Conscience of a Keeper

  Kerwin felt as if he were sleepwalking as they hurried across the airfield, Elorie moving dreamlike at his side. They had failed, then, and it was too late. He caught at her saying, “It’s too late! Accept it!” But she kept moving, and he would not let her go alone. They passed through the sparkling Veil, and Kerwin caught his breath at the impact of the tremendous, charged force that seemed to suffuse the entire Tower, radiating from that high room where the circle had formed. Incomplete, yes, but still holding incredible power. It beat in Kerwin like an extra heartbeat, and he felt Elorie, at his side, trembling.

  Was this dangerous for her, now?

  Swept on, dominated by her will and that mysterious force, Kerwin climbed the Tower. He stood outside the matrix chamber, sensing what lay within.

  Auster’s barrier was no more than a wall of mist to him. His body remained outside the room, but he was inside, too, and with senses beyond his physical eyes he touched them all: Taniquel, in the monitor’s seat, Rannirl firmly holding the technician’s visualization; Kennard bent over the maps; Corus in his own, Kerwin’s place; and holding them together, on frail spiderweb strands, an unfamiliar touch, like pain....

  She was slight and frail, not yet out of childhood, yet she wore the robe of a Keeper, crimson, not the ceremonial robe but the loose hooded robe they all wore within the matrix chamber, her robe crimson, so that no one would touch her even by accident when she was carrying the load of the energons. She had dark hair like spun black glass, still braided like a child’s along her face, and a small, triangular, plain face, pale and thin and trembling with effort.

  She sensed his touch and looked puzzled, yet somehow she knew it was not intrusion, that he belonged here. Quickly Kerwin made the rounds of the circle again, Rannirl, Corus, Taniquel, Neyrissa, Kennard—Auster ...

  Auster. He sensed something, from outside the circle as he was, like a sticky, palpable black cord, extending outside the barrier; the line that chained them, kept the matrix circle from closing their ring of power. The bond, the psychic bond between the twin-born, that bound Auster’s twin without his knowledge to the fringes of the circle ...

  Spy! Terran, spy! Auster had sensed his presence, turned viciously in his direction ... though his body, immobile in the rapport, did not move ... but the tension rippled the calm of the circle, came near to breaking.

  “Spy and Terran. But not I, my brother!” Kerwin moved into the circle, fell into full rapport and projected into Auster’s mind the full memory of that room where Cleindori, Arnad, Cassilde had been murdered, Cassilde struck down still bearing Auster’s sister, who was never born ...

  Auster screamed noiselessly in anguish. But as the barrier around the circle dropped, Kerwin caught it up in his own telepathic touch; flashed round the circle in a swift round, locking himself into it; and with one swift, deliberate thrust, cut through the black cord ... (sizzling, scorching, a bond severed) and broke the bond forever.

  (Miles away, a swart little man who called himself Ragan collapsed with a scream of agony, to lie senseless for hours, and wake with no knowledge of what had happened. Days later, they found him and took him to Neskaya, where, in the Tower, the psychic wound was healed and Auster was ready, again, to greet his unknown twin; but that came later.)

  Auster’s mind was re
eling; Kerwin supported him with a strong telepathic touch, dropping into deep rapport.

  Bring me into the circle!

  There was a brief moment of dizzy timelessness as he fell into the old rapport. A facet of the crystal, a bodiless speck floating in a ring of light ... then he was one of them.

  Far down beneath the surface of the world lie those strange substance, those atoms, molecules, ions known as minerals. His touch had searched them out, through the crystal structure in the matrix screen; now, atom by atom and molecule by molecule, he had sifted them from impurities so that they lay pure and molten in their rocky beds, and now the welded ring of power was to lift them, through psychokinesis, molding the circle into a great Hand that would bring them in streams to the place prepared for them.

  They were poised, waiting, as the frail spiderweb touch of the child-Keeper faltered, trying to grasp them. Kerwin deeply in rapport with Taniquel, felt the monitor’s despair as she felt the girl’s wavering touch.

  No! It will kill her!

  And then, as the welded circle faltered, ready to dissolve, Kerwin felt again a familiar, secure, beloved touch.

  Elorie! No! You cannot!

  I am a Keeper, and responsible only to my own conscience. What matter? My ritual status, an old taboo that lost its meaning generations ago? Or my power to wield the energons, my skill as Keeper? Two women died so that I could be free to do this work I was born and trained to do. Cleindori proved it, even before she left Arilinn, she would have freed the Keepers from laws she had found to be pious frauds, meaningless and superstitious lies! They would not hear her; they drove her out to die! Now, with the Terrans waiting for us to fail, will you sacrifice the success of Arilinn for an old taboo? If you will, let Arilinn be broken, and let Darkover fall to the Terrans; but the blame is upon you, not me, my brothers and my sisters!

  Then, with infinite gentleness (a steadying arm slipped around the childish shoulders, a faltering and spilling cup held firmly in place), Elorie slid into the rapport, gently displacing the spiderweb-threads of the child-Keeper’s touch with her own strong linkage, so gently that there was neither shock nor hurt.

  Little sister, this weight is too strong for you. ...

  And the rapport locked suddenly into a closed ring within the crystal screen; the power flared, flowed ... Kerwin was no longer a single person, he was not human at all, he was one with the circle, part of a tremendous, glowing, burning river of molten metal that surged upward, impelled by great throbbing power; it burst, spilled, flamed, engulfed them....

  Slowly, slowly, it cooled and hardened and lay inert again, awaiting the touch of those who had need of it, awaiting the tools and hands that would shape it into tools, energy, power, the life of a world.

  One by one, the circle loosened and dissolved. Kerwin felt himself drop from the circle. Taniquel raised eyes, blazing with love and triumph, to welcome him back. Kennard, Rannirl, Corus, Neyrissa, they were all round him; Auster, deep shock in his cat’s eyes, but burnt clean of hatred, came to welcome him with a quick, hard embrace, a brother’s touch.

  The little girl, the Keeper from Neskaya, lay fallen in a heap; she had physically fallen from the Keeper’s seat to the floor, and Taniquel was bending over her, hands to her temples. The child looked boneless, exhausted, fainting. Taniquel said, troubled, “Rannirl, come and carry her. ...”

  Elorie! Kerwin’s heart sucked and turned over. He leaped over the chairs to throw open the door of the room. He had no memory of how he had gotten into the room, but Elorie had not managed, however it was, to follow him. Her mind had come into the matrix ring ... but her body lay outside the shielded room unguarded.

  She was lying on the floor in the hall, sprawled there white and lifeless at his feet. Kerwin dropped to his knees, at her side, all his triumph, all his exaltation, melting into hatred and curses, as he laid his hand to her unmoving breast.

  Elorie, Elorie! Driven by the conscience of a Keeper, she had returned to save the Tower ... but had she paid with her life? She had gone unprepared, unguarded, into a tremendous matrix operation. He knew how this work drained vitality, exhausting her nearly to the point of death; and even when she was carefully guarded and isolated, this work taxed her to the breaking point! Even guarding her vitality and nervous forces with chastity and sacrosanct isolation, she could hardly endure it! No, she had not lost her powers ... but was this the price she must pay for daring to use them now?

  I have killed her!

  Despairing, he knelt beside her, hardly knowing it when Neyrissa moved him aside.

  Kennard shook him roughly.

  “Jeff! Jeff, she’s not dead, not yet, there’s a chance! But you’ve got to let the monitors get to her, let us see how bad it is!”

  “Damn you, don’t touch her! Haven’t you devils done enough—”

  “He’s hysterical,” Kennard said briefly. “Get him loose, Rannirl.” Kerwin felt Rannirl’s strong arms holding him, restraining him; he fought to reach Elorie, and Rannirl said compassionately, “I’m sorry, bredu. You have to let us—damn it, brother, hold still or I’ll have to knock you senseless!”

  He felt Elorie taken by force from his arms, cried out with his rage and despair ... then slowly, sensing their warm touch on his mind, he subsided. Elorie wasn’t dead. They were only trying to help. He subsided, standing quiet between Rannirl and Auster, seeing with half an eye that Rannirl’s mouth was bleeding and that there was a scratch on Auster’s face.

  “I know,” Auster said in a low voice, “but easy, foster-brother, they’ll do everything that can be done. Tani and Neyrissa are with her now.” He raised his eyes. “I failed. I failed, bredu. I would have broken, if you hadn’t been here. I never had any right to be here at all, I’m Terran, outsider, you have more right here than I. ...”

  Unexpectedly, to Kerwin’s horror, Auster dropped to his knees. His voice was just audible.

  “All that I said of you was true of myself, vai dom; I must have known it, hating myself and pretending it was you I hated. All I deserve at the hands of the Comyn is death. There is life between us, Damon Aillard; claim it as you will.” He bowed his head and waited there, broken, resigned to death.

  And suddenly Jeff was furious.

  “Get up, you damned fool,” he said roughly hauling Auster to his feet. “All it means is that some of you halfwits—” and he looked around at all of them, “are going to have to change some of your stupid notions about the Comyn, that’s all. So Auster was born of a Terran father—so what? He has the Ridenow Gift—because he was brought up believing he had it! I went through all kinds of hell in my training ... because all of you believed that with my Terran blood I’d find it difficult, and made me believe it! Yes, laran is inherited, but it’s not nearly to the extent you believed. It means that Cleindori was right; matrix mechanics is just a science anyone can learn, and there’s no need to surround it with all kinds of ritual and taboo! A Keeper doesn’t need to be a virgin ...” He broke off.

  Elorie believed it. And her belief could kill her!

  And yet ... she knew, she had been part of his link, with Cleindori; this was why Cleindori had given him the matrix, although his child’s mind had almost broken under the burden: so that one day another Keeper could read what Cleindori had discovered, and deliver to Arilinn the message they would not hear from her, read the mind and heart and conscience of the martyred Keeper, who had died to free other young women from the prison the Arilinn Tower would build around their minds and their hearts.

  “But we’ve won,” Rannirl said, and Jeff knew they had all followed his thought.

  “A period of grace,” said Kennard somberly. “Not a final victory!”

  And Jeff knew Kennard was right. This experiment might have succeeded, and the Pan-Darkovan Syndicate was now bound in honor to be guided by the will of Hastur in accepting Terran ways. But there had been a failure, too.

  Kennard put it into words.

  “The Tower circles can never be brought back
as they were in the old days. Life can only go forward, not back. It’s even better to ask help from the Terrans—in our own way and on our own terms—than to let all this weight rest on the shoulders of a few gifted men and women. Better that the people of Darkover should learn to share the effort with one another, Comyn and Commoner, and even with the people of Terra.” He sighed.

  “I deserted them,” he said. “If I had fought all the way beside them—things might have gone differently. But this was what they were working for; Cleindori and Cassilde, Jeff and Lewis, Arnad, old Damon—all of us. To make an even exchange; Darkover to share the matrix powers with Terra, for those few things where they could be safely used, and Terra to give such things as she had. But as equals; not the Terran masters and the Darkovan suppliants. A fair exchange between equal worlds; each world with its own pride, and its own power. And I let you be sent to Terra,” he added, looking straight at Jeff, “because I felt you a threat to my own sons. Can you forgive me, Damon Aillard?”

  Jeff said, “I’ll never get used to that name. I don’t want it, Kennard. I wasn’t brought up to it. I don’t even believe in your kind of government, or inherited power of that kind. If your sons do, they’re welcome to it; you’ve brought them up to take those kinds of responsibility. Just—” He grinned. “Use what influence you have to see that I’m not deported, day after tomorrow.”

  Kennard said gently, “There is no such person as Jeff Kerwin, Junior. They cannot possibly deport the grandson of Valdir Alton to Terra. Whatever he chooses to call himself.”

  There was a feather-light touch on Jeff’s arm. He looked down into the pale, childish face of the child-Keeper; and remembered her name, Callina of Neskaya.

  She whispered, “Elorie—she is conscious; she wants you.”

  Jeff said gravely, “Thank you, vai leronis,” and watched the child blushing. What Elorie had done had freed this girl, too; but she did not know it yet.