The Forbidden Circle

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  “What is that? What are you giving her, damn it?”

  “It will keep her from going into another convulsion,” Damon said, “at least for the rest of the night. And tomorrow . . .” But he shrank from finishing the sentence. Even when he was doing this work regularly in the Tower, he had no liking for it. He shrank from the pain he must inflict, shrank, too, from the need to face Callista with the stark knowledge that she must sacrifice what little gain had been made with her maturing, and return to the state Leonie had imposed on her, unresponsive, immature, neuter. He walked away from Callista, rinsing and replacing the vial, trying to calm himself. He sat down on the other bed, looking at Callista in dismay, and Ellemir came to his side. Andrew still knelt by Callista, and Damon thought that he should send him away, because even in sleep Callista was conscious of him, her channels reacting to his physical presence even if her mind did not. For a moment it seemed as if he could see Andrew and Callista as a series of whirling, interlocking magnetic fields, reaching out toward one another, grasping, intertwining polarities. But where the energies should reinforce and strengthen one another, the forces were swirling and backing up in Callista, draining her strength, unable to flow freely. And what was this doing to Andrew? It was draining him too. By main force Damon turned off the perception, forcing himself to come back to the surface, to see Callista just as a desperately sick woman who had collapsed after a convulsion and Andrew as a concerned man, bending over her in dread and despair.

  It was for this kind of thing that Leonie sent him from the Tower, he knew. She said he was too sensitive, that it would destroy him, he recalled, and then, for the first time in his life, rebellion came. It could have been a strength, not a weakness. It could have made him even more valuable to them.

  Ellemir came and sat down beside him. He stretched out a hand to her, though, with an almost anguished need, how long it had been since they had come together in love. Yet the long discipline of the matrix mechanic held firm in his mind. It did not occur to him to think of breaking it. He drew her down, kissed her gently, and said, “I have to save my strength, darling, tomorrow is going to be demanding. Otherwise . . .” He laid a kiss into the palm of her hand, a private memory and a promise.

  Ellemir sensed that he was pretending a cheerfulness and confidence he did not feel, and for a moment she was outraged, that Damon did not believe she knew, or that he thought he could pretend or lie to her. Then she realized the hard discipline behind that optimism, the rigid courtesies of a telepath worker. To give any mental recognition to such dread would reinforce it, create a kind of positive feedback, spiraling them down into a self-perpetuating chaos of despair. She was, she reflected with a touch of cynicism, getting some hard lessons in what it was like to be bound so closely to a working telepath. But her love and concern for Damon overflowed. She knew he did not want pity, but his greatest need, just now, was to be freed of concern about whether he would have to compensate for her dread.

  She must carry her own burden of fears, she cautioned herself. She could not lay them on Damon. She took his hands in hers, leaning over to return his kiss very lightly.

  Gratefully, he drew her down beside him, holding her in the curve of his arm, a comforting, wholly unde manding touch.

  Andrew glanced around at them, from where he knelt beside Callista, and Damon caught his emotions: fear for Callista, dread, uncertainty—can Damon really help her?—distress at what it would mean if she were to be wholly Keeper again, all her old conditioning intact with the cleared channels. And, seeing Ellemir lying close against Damon, curled up in his arm, a confused emotion that was not, really, even jealousy. Callie and he had never had even this much. . . . Damon’s pity for Andrew went so deep he had to cut it off, stifle it lest it tear at him and lessen his strength for what he had to do tomorrow.

  “You stay close to Callista. Call me if there’s any change, no matter how slight,” he said, and saw Andrew draw a chair close to Callista, lean forward, lightly holding her limp wrist in his own.

  Poor devil, Damon thought, he can’t even disturb her now. She’s too far gone for that, but he has to feel he’s doing something for her, or he’ll crack. And the comfort he felt in Ellemir’s closeness was gone. With rigid discipline, he made himself relax, lie quietly at her side, loosen his muscles and float into the calm state needed for what he had to do. At last, floating, he slept.

  It was well after daylight when Callista stirred, opening her eyes in confusion.

  “Andrew?”

  “I’m here, love.” He tightened his fingers on hers. “How are you feeling?”

  “Better, I think.” She could not feel any pain. Somewhere—a long time ago—someone had told her that was a bad sign. After the suffering of the last days she welcomed it. “I seem to have slept a long time, and Damon was worrying because I didn’t.”

  Did she even know she had been drugged? Aloud he said, “Let me call Damon,” and stepped away. On the other bed Damon lay stretched out, lightly holding Ellemir with one arm. Andrew felt that cruel stab of agonized envy. They seemed so secure, so happy in the knowledge of one another. Would Callista and he ever have this? He had to believe it or die.

  Ellemir’s blue eyes opened. She smiled up at him, and Damon, as she stirred, was instantly awake.

  “How is Callista?”

  “She seems better.”

  Damon looked at him skeptically, got up and went to Callista’s side. Following him, Andrew suddenly saw Callista through Damon’s eyes: white and emaciated, her eyes deeply sunken into her cheeks.

  Damon said gently, “Callista, you know as well as I what has to be done. You’re a Keeper, girl.”

  “Don’t call me that!” she flared at him. “Never again!”

  “I know you have been released from your oath, but an oath is only a word, Callista. I tell you, there is no other way. I cannot take the responsibility—”

  “I have not asked you to! I am free—”

  “Free to die,” Damon said brutally.

  “Don’t you think I’d rather die?” she said, and began to cry for the first time since that night, sobbing stormily. Damon watched her, his face like stone, but Andrew took her up in his arms, holding her against him, protectively.

  “Damon, what in the hell are you doing to her!”

  Damon’s face was red with anger. He said, “Damn it, Callista, I’m tired of being treated like a monster coming between you, when I’ve exhausted myself trying to protect you both.”

  “I know that,” she wept, “but I can’t bear it. You know what this is doing to Andrew, to me, it’s killing us both!”

  Andrew could feel her hands shaking as she clung to him, cradled in his arms, her body light as a child’s. From somewhere he seemed to see her as a strange web of light, a kind of electrical energy net. Where was this strange perception coming from? His body no longer seemed real, but was trembling in a nowhere, and he too was no more than a fragile web of electrical energies, sparking and sputtering, with a deathly, growing weakness. . . .

  Now he could no longer see Damon—Damon, too, was lost behind the swirling electrical nets. No, Damon was flowing, changing, glowing with anger, a dull crimson like a furnace. Andrew had seen this before, when he confronted Dezi. Like all men of easygoing temperament and flaring, easily dispelled anger, Andrew was shocked and horrified at the deep-down furnace-red glow of Damon’s. Dimly behind the shifting colors and electrical energies, the swirling pulses and lights, he knew that the man Damon walked to the window and stood, his back to them, staring out into the snowstorm, struggling to master his wrath. Andrew could feel the rage from inside, as he felt Callista’s agony, as he felt Ellemir’s confusion. He fought to get them all solid again, all hard and human, not swirling confusions of electrical images. What was real? he wondered. Were they really nothing more than swirling energy masses, fields of energy and moving atoms in space? He fought to hold on to human preception, through Callista’s frenzied, feverish grip. He wanted to go to the
window. . . . He did go to the window and touch Damon. . . . He did not move, anchored by the weight of Callista across his lap. Fighting for human speech, he said, entreating, “Damon, no one thinks you are a monster. Callista will do whatever you think is best. We both trust you, don’t we, Callista?”

  With an effort Damon managed to control his wrath. It was rare for him to let it have even a moment’s mastery over him. He felt ashamed. At last he came to their side and said gently, “Andrew has a right to be consulted in your decision, Callista. You cannot keep doing this to all of us. If it were only your own decision—” He broke off with a gasp. “Andrew! Put her down, quickly!”

  Callista had gone limp in Andrew’s arms. Shaken by the fright in Damon’s voice, Andrew made no protest when Damon lifted Callista from his arms, laid her back in bed. He motioned Andrew to move away. Puzzled, resentful, Andrew obeyed. Damon bent over the woman.

  “You see? No, don’t cry again, you haven’t the strength. Don’t you know you went into crisis last night? You had a convulsion. I gave you some raivannin—you know what that means as well as I do, Callie.”

  She hardly had the strength to whisper, “I think . . . we would all be better off . . .”

  Damon held her wrists lightly in his hand, such slender wrists that even Damon’s hands, which were not large, could wholly encircle them. Feeling Andrew’s resentful stare, he said wearily, “She hasn’t the strength for another convulsion.”

  Andrew said, at the end of endurance, “Was this my doing, too? Is it always going to be unsafe for me to touch her?”

  “Don’t blame Andrew, Damon . . .” Callista’s voice was only a thread. “It was I who wanted . . .”

  “You see?” Damon said. “If I keep you away from her she wants to die. If I let you touch her, the physical stress gets worse and worse. Quite apart from the emotional strain, which is tearing you both to pieces, physically she can’t endure much more. Something must be done quickly, before—” He broke off, but they all knew what he did not say: Before she goes into convulsions again and we can’t stop it this time.

  “You know what has to be done, Callista, and you know how much time you have to make up your mind. Damn it, Callie, do you think I want to torment you when you’re in this state? I know you are physically in the state of a girl of twelve, but you are not a child, can’t you stop behaving like one? Can’t you somehow manage to behave like the adult professional you have learned to be? Stop being so damned emotional about it! What we have here is a physical fact! You are a Keeper—”

  “I am not! I’m not!” she gasped.

  “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 we 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 descision, 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, breath
ing—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?