Finally they reached a curious, thin darkness, and Leonie, close beside him in the nowhere spaces, said, but not in words:
This is the level where we can slip loose of linear time. Try to think of moving along a river upstream. It will be easier if we find a single fixed place and move back from there. Help me find Arilinn.
Damon thought Is Arilinn here too? and knew he was being absurd. Every place which physically existed must stretch upward through all the levels of the universe. Intangibly, a hand gripped his and Damon felt his own hand materializing where it might have been if, here, he had one. He focused his mind on Arilinn, saw a dim shadow and found himself in Leonie’s room there.
Once, in his last year there, Leonie had collapsed inside the relays. He had carried her to her room and laid her on her bed. He had not at the time consciously noted a single detail of that chamber, yet he saw it now, dimly outlined on his mind and memory…
No, Damon! Avarra have pity, no!
He had had no notion of calling up that forgotten day, no desire to remember—Zandru’s hells, no! The memory had been Leonie’s, and he knew it, but he accepted blame for it and sought a more neutral memory. In the matrix chamber at Arilinn he watched Callista, at thirteen, her hair still down her back. He guided her fingers gently, touching the nodes where the nerves surfaced against the skin. He could see the embroidered butterflies on the wrists of her smock; he had not noticed them then. Dimly, but with a realness which unnerved him—were these revived thoughts of years ago or was the present-day Callista remembering?—he saw that she was docile, but frightened of this stern man who had been her dead brother’s sworn friend but now seemed impassive, old, alienated, distant. A stranger, not the familiar kinsman.
Was I so harsh with her, so distant? Were you frightened of me, Callie? Zandru’s hells, why are we so harsh with these children!
Leonie’s hands touched him across Callista’s. How austere she had been, even then, how stern and lined her face had grown in a few years. But time swept backward and Callista was gone, had never been there. He stood before Leonie for the first time, a young psi monitor seeing for the first time the face of the Keeper of Arilinn. Evanda! How beautiful she had been! All Hastur women were beautiful, but she had the legendary beauty of Cassilda. He felt again the agony of first love, the despair of knowing it was hopeless, but time was still flowing backward with merciful swiftness. Damon lost awareness of his body, it had never existed, he was a dim dream in a dimmer darkness, seeing the faces of Keepers he had never known. (Surely that fair-haired woman was a Ridenow of his own clan.) He saw a monument built in the courtyard to honor Marelie Hastur, and knew with a spasm of terror that he was watching an event which had taken place three centuries before his own birth. He kept on, moving upstream, felt Leonie swept away from him, tried to fight his way to her…
I can go no further, Damon. The Gods guard you, kinsman.
He reached for her in panic, but she was gone, would not be born for hundreds of years. He was alone, dazed, wearied, in a vast twinkling foggy darkness, only the shadow of Arilinn behind. Where can I go? I could wander forever through the Ages of Chaos and learn nothing.
Neskaya. He knew that Neskaya was the center of the secret. He let Arilinn dissolve, felt himself move with thought to the Tower of Neskaya, outlined against the Kilghard Hills. It was like fording a cold mountain stream against a current which was trying to sweep him downstream to his own time. In the dim struggle he had almost lost track of his objective. Now, desperately, he reformed it: to find a Keeper in Neskaya before it was destroyed in the Ages of Chaos and then rebuilt. He struggled backward, backward, and saw Neskaya Tower lying in ruins, destroyed in the last of the great wars of that age, burned to ashes, the Keeper and all her circle slaughtered.
It was there again, not the sturdy cobblestone structure he had seen rising behind the walls of Neskaya City, but a tall, luminous, dim-glowing tower of pallid blue stone. Neskaya! Neskaya in the ages of its glory, before the Comyn had fallen to the poor remnant of today. He felt himself shuddering somewhere at the knowledge that he saw what no living man or woman of his time had ever seen, the Tower of Neskaya in the heyday of the Comyn.
A twinkling light began to dawn in the courtyard, and by its sparkle Damon saw a young man and remembered, in startlement and welcome, that he had seen this once before. He chose to interpret it as a sign. The young man was wearing green and gold, with a great sparkling ring on his finger—ring or matrix? Surely that delicate face, the green and gold clothing of an ancient cut, marked the young man as a Ridenow? Yes, Damon had seen him before, though briefly. He felt himself formulate with a curious emotional sense of relief. He knew that the body he wore on this complicated astral level was only an image, the shadow of a shadow. He was briefly aware of his own body, cold, comatose, cramped, a gasping tormented piece of flesh unimaginably elsewhere. The body he wore here in the higher level was unfettered, calm, easy. After such exhausting eternities of formlessness, even the shadow of form was a release of tension, almost an explosion of pleasure. A solid weight, blood he could feel pulsing in his veins, eyes that could see… The young man wavered, became firm. Yes, he was a Ridenow, a lot like Damon’s brother Kieran, the only brother Damon loved rather than tolerated with civility for their common blood.
Damon felt a rush of love for the stranger, who must have been one of his own remote forebears. He wore a long loose golden robe, cinctured with green, and surveyed Damon with a calm, kindly stare. He said, “By your face and your garments you are surely one of my own clan. Do you wander in a dream, kinsman, or do you seek me from another Tower?”
Damon said, “I am Damon Ridenow.” He began to say that he was not now a Tower worker, but it occurred to him that on this level time had no meaning. If all time co-existed —as it must—then the time when he had been psi technician was as real, as present, as the time when he lay in Armida, searching. “Damon Ridenow, Third in Arilinn Tower, technician by grade, under Wardship of Leonie of Arilinn, Lady Hastur.”
The young man said gently, “Surely you dream, or you are mad, or astray in time, kinsman. All the Keepers from Nevarsin to Hali are known to me, and there is no Leonie among them, nor no Hastur woman.” He smiled, not unkindly. “Shall I dismiss you to your own place, cousin, and your own time? These levels are dangerous, and no mere technician can tread them in safety. You may return when you have won the strength of Keeper, cousin, and that you have come here now shows me you have already that strength. But I can send you to a level that is safe for you, and wish for you as much caution as you have courage.”
“I am neither mad nor dreaming,” Damon said, “nor am I astray in time, though truly I am far from my own day. My Keeper sent me here, and it may be that you are whom I seek. Who are you?”
“I am Varzil,” said the young man, “Varzil of Neskaya, Keeper of the Tower.”
Keeper. Damon had been told of times when men were made Keepers. The young man used the word in a form he had never heard, however, tenerézu. When Leonie had told him of male Keepers, she had used the common form of the word, which was invariably feminine. Coming from Varzil, the word was a shock. Varzil! The legendary Varzil, called the Good, who had redeemed Hali after the Cataclysm destroyed the lake there. “In my day you are a legend, Varzil of Neskaya, remembered best as Lord of Hali.”
Varzil smiled. He had a calm, intelligent face, but it was alive with curiosity, without the withdrawn, remote, isolated quality of every Keeper Damon had ever known. “A legend, cousin? Well, I suppose legends lie in your day as in mine, and it might be well for me to know nothing of what lies ahead, lest I grow afraid, or arrogant. Tell me nothing, Damon. Yet one thing you have told already. For if a woman is Keeper in your day, then has my work succeeded and those who refused to believe a woman strong enough for Keeper have been silenced. So I know my work is not futile and will succeed. And since you have given me a gift, Damon, a gift of confidence, what can I give you in return? For you would not undertake a
journey so far without some terrible need.”
“The need is not mine but my kinswoman’s,” Damon said. “She was trained to be Keeper at Arilinn, but has been released from her vows, to marry.”
“Need she be released for that?” Varzil asked. “But what is your need? Even in my day, kinsman, a Keeper is no longer surgically mutilated, or do you think me a eunuch?” He laughed with a gaiety which for some reason reminded Damon of Ellemir.
“No, but she is held halfway between Keeper and normal woman,” Damon said. “Her channels were fixed to the Keeper’s pattern when she was too young, before maturing, and she cannot readjust the channels to select for normal use.”
Varzil looked thoughtful. He said, “Yes, this can happen. Tell me, how old was she when she was trained?”
“Between thirteen and fourteen, I think.”
Varzil nodded. “I thought so. The mind writes deeply in the body, and the channels cannot readjust with the imprint of many, many years as a Keeper in her mind. You must lead her mind back to the days when her body was free, before the channels were altered and locked, and many years as Keeper froze the imprint into her nerve channels. Her mind once free, her body will free itself. When you take her through the sacrament next—But wait, are you sure the channels have not been surgically altered, nor the nerves cut?”
“No, it seems to have been done in pattern training with a matrix—”
Varzil shrugged. “Unnecessary, but not serious,” he said. “There are always some of the women who let their channels lock that way, but at the Year’s End festival the release comes. Some of our early Keepers were chieri, neither man nor woman, emmasca, and they too found themselves locked or frozen into that pattern. This, of course, is why we instituted the old sacramental rite of Year’s End. How you must love her, cousin, to come so far! May she bear you children who will be as much credit to your clan as their brave father.”
“She is not my wife,” Damon said, “but wedded to my sworn brother…” As soon as he had said that, he felt confused, for the words seemed to have no meaning to Varzil, who shook his head dismissingly.
“You are her Keeper; it is for you to be responsible.”
“No, it is she who is Keeper,” Damon protested, feeling a sudden frightening irritability, and Varzil looked at him sharply. The overworld shook, trembled, and for a moment Damon lost sight of Varzil, even the great sparkle of his ring dimming out into a faint, distant point of blue. Was it a matrix? He felt as if he was smothering, drowning in the darkness. He heard Varzil in the distance, calling his name, then with relief felt Varzil’s hand close faintly upon the image of his hand. His body came into focus again, but he felt faint and sick. He could only see Varzil dimly, and beyond him a circle of faces, a glittering ring of stones, faces of Comyn who must have been his forgotten ancestors. Varzil sounded deeply concerned.
“You must not remain here longer, cousin, this level is death for the untrained. Come back, if you must, when you have won your full strength as Tenerézu. Do not fear for your cherished one, Damon. It is for you, as her Keeper, to take her into the ancient sacrament of Year’s End, as if she were half-chieri, and emmasca. I fear you must wait for the festival, if she must work as Keeper in the time between, but after that, all will be well. And not in three hundred years or a thousand will any child of the Towers forget the festival.” Damon swayed, dizzy, and Varzil steadied him again, saying with kindly concern, “Look into my ring. I will return you to a level that is safe for you. Do not fear, this ring has none of the dangers of the ordinary matrix. Farewell, kinsman, bear my love and greetings to the one you cherish.”
Damon said, feeling his consciousness thinning and groping, “I do not… do not understand.” Nothing remained clear now but Varzil’s ring, glowing, coruscating, wiping out the darkness. I saw this before, like a beacon. . Speech had gone. He could no longer formulate words. But Varzil was close beside him in the darkness. Yes, I shall go now and set a beacon to guide you here… this ring.
Damon thought, confusedly, I saw it before.
Do not struggle with definitions for time, cousin. When you are Keeper you will understand.
Men are not Keepers in my day.
Yet you are Keeper, or could never have come here without death. Now I may delay no longer for your safe return, cousin, brother…
The glow of the ring filled Damon’s consciousness. Sight vanished, light left him, his body went formless. He was floating, struggling to maintain balance over a gulf of nothingness. He fought to cling to some foothold, felt himself swept away, falling. All those levels I climbed so painfully, must I fall down them all…?
He fell, and knew he would go on falling, falling, for hundreds of years.
Darkness. Pain. Formless weariness. Then Callista’s voice, saying, “I think he’s coming around now. Andrew, lift his head, will you? Elli, if you don’t stop crying, I’ll send you out of here, I mean that!” He felt the sting of firi on his tongue, and then Callista’s face moved into his range of vision. He whispered, and knew his teeth were chattering, “Cold… I’m so cold…”
“No you aren’t, love,” Callista said gently. “You’re wrapped in all the blankets we have, and there are hot bricks at your feet, see? The cold is inside you, don’t you think I know? No, no more firi. We’ll have hot soup for you in a minute.”
He could see now, and every detail of his journey, of the conversation with Varzil, came flooding back into his mind. Did he truly meet an ancestor so long dead that even his bones were dust by now? Or did he dream, dramatize knowledge deep in his unconscious? Or did his mind reach deep into time to see what was written on the fabric of the past? What was reality?
But what festival did Varzil mean? He had said that not in three hundred years or a thousand would the Comyn forget the festival and the sacrament, but Varzil had not counted on the Ages of Chaos, on the destruction of Neskaya Tower.
Still, the answer was there. As yet it was obscure, but he could already see where it was leading. The mind writes deeply in the body. Somehow, then, he must lead Callista’s mind back to a time when her body was free of the cruel constraints of the years as Keeper. It is for you as her Keeper to lead her into the ancient sacrament of Year’s End, as if she were half-chieri and emmasca.
Whatever the lost festival, it could be recaptured or reconstructed somehow—a ritual to free the mind of its constraints? If all else failed—what had Varzil said? Come back when you have won your full strength as Keeper.
Damon shuddered. Must he, then, continue this frightening work, outside the safety of a Tower, to make himself Keeper in truth, as well as in the potential Leonie had seen in him? Well, he was pledged, and for Callista there was, perhaps, no other way.
It might not be that bad, he thought hopefully. There must be records of the festival of Year’s End in the other Towers, or perhaps at Hali, in the rhu fead, the holy place of the Comyn.
Ellemir looked over Callista’s shoulder. Her eyes were red with crying. He sat up, clutching the blankets about him. “Did I frighten you, my dearest love?”
She gasped. “You were so cold, so stiff, you didn’t even seem to be breathing. And then you would start gasping, moaning—I thought you were dying, dead—oh, Damon!” Her hands clutched at him. “Never do this again! Promise me!”
Forty days ago he would have promised her, with pleasure. “My darling, this is the work I was trained for, and I must be free to do it at need.” Varzil had hailed him as Keeper. Was that his destiny?
But not at a Tower again. They had made an art of deforming the lives of their workers. In seeking to free Callista, would he free all his sons and daughters to come?
Callista raised her head at a slight sound. “That will be the food I sent for. Go and fetch it, Andrew, we don’t want outsiders in here.” When he returned, she poured hot soup into a mug. “Drink it down as quickly as you can, Damon. You are as weak as a bird newly hatched.”
He grimaced, saying, “Next time I think I’ll
stay inside the egg.” He began to drink in hesitant sips, not sure, at first, that he could swallow. His hands would not hold the mug, and Andrew steadied it for him.
“How long was I out?”
“All day, and most of the night,” Callista said. “And of course I could not move during that time either, so I’m stiff as planks nailed into a coffin!” Wearily she stretched her cramped limbs, and Andrew, leaving Ellemir to hold Damon’s mug, came and knelt before her, pulling off her velvet slippers and rubbing her feet with his strong hands. “How cold they are!” he said in dismay.
“About the only advantage the higher levels have over winter in Nevarsin is that you don’t get frostbite,” Callista said, and Damon grinned wryly. “You don’t get frostbite in the hells, either, but I never heard that advanced as a good reason not to stay out of them.” Andrew looked puzzled, and Damon asked, “Or do your people have a hot hell, as I heard the Dry-Towners do?”
Andrew nodded, and Damon finished his soup and held out his mug for more. He explained, “Zandru supposedly rules over nine hells, each colder than the last. When I was in Nevarsin they used to say that the student dormitory was kept about the temperature of the fourth hell, as a way of showing us what might be in store for us if we broke too many rules.” He glanced at the harsh darkness outside the window. “Is it snowing?”
The Forbidden Tower Page 30