Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover

by Marion Zimmer Bradley

  Leonie, when she came, was as calm, as carefully put together as if she were facing the Council. “I am here, child,” she said, laying the lightest of touches on Hilary’s wrist, and the very touch seemed to quiet Hilary somewhat, as if it stabilized her ragged breathing. But she whispered, “I’m so sorry, Leonie—I didn’t want to—I can’t let you down—I can’t, I can’t—”

  “Hush, hush, child. Don’t waste your strength,” Leonie commanded, and behind the harshness of the words there was a tenderness, too. “Callista, did you monitor her?”

  Callista, biting her lip, composed herself to make a formal report on what she discovered. The older telepaths listened, and Damon went over the monitoring process for himself, sinking his mental awareness into the girl’s tormented body, pointing out to Callista what she had missed.

  “The knots in the arms; that is only tension, but painful. The bleeding is heavy, yet, but not dangerously. Did you check the lower channels?

  Callista shook her head and Damon said, “Do it now. And test for contamination.”

  Callista hesitated, her hands a considerable distance from Hilary, and Damon’s voice was harsh.

  “You know how to test her. Do it.”

  Callista drew a deep breath, schooling her face to the absolute impassivity she knew she must maintain or be punished. She dared not even form clearly the thought, I’m sorry, Hilary, I don’t want to hurt you—she focused on her matrix, than lowered her awareness into the electrical potential of the channels. Hilary screamed. Callista flinched and recoiled, but Leonie had seen, and forced swift rapport so that Callista, immobilized, felt the wave of sharp pain flood through her as well. She knew the lesson intended—you must maintain absolute detachment—and forced her face and her voice to quiet, concealing the resentment she felt.

  “Both channels are contaminated, the left somewhat more than the right; the right only in the nerve nodes, the left all the way from the center complex. There are three focuses of resistance on the left—”

  Damon sighed. “Well, Hilary,” he said gently, “you know as well as I what must be done. If we wait much longer, you will go into convulsions again.”

  Hilary flinched inwardly with dread, but her face showed nothing, and somewhere, in a remote corner of her being, she was proud of her control.

  “Go and fetch some kirian, Callista; there is no sense waking anyone else for this,” Leonie said.

  When the child returned with it and was about to run away, Leonie said, “This time, you must stay, Callista. There may be times when you must do this unaided, and it is not too early to learn every step of the process.”

  Callista met Hilary’s eyes, and there was a flash of rebellion in them. She thought, I could never hurt anyone like that . . . but despite her terrible fear, she forced herself to stand quiet.

  Will they make me go through it this time in rapport with her . . .?

  Damon held Hilary’s hand, giving her the telepathic drug which would, a little, ease the resistance to what contact they must make with her mind and body, clearing the channels. Hilary was incoherent now, slipping rapidly into delirium; her thoughts blurred, and Callista could hardly make them out.

  Once again to lie still and let myself be cut into pieces and then stitched back together again, that is what it feels like . . . and they are training even little Callista to be a torturer’s assistant . . . to stand by without a flicker of pity . . . .

  “Gently, gently, my darling,” Leonie said, “When it is over, it will be better.”

  She is so cruel, and so kind, how do I know which is real? Callista could not tell whether it was her own thought or Hilary’s. She knew she was tense, numb with fear, and forced herself to breathe deeply and relax, fearing that her own tension and dread would communicate itself to Hilary and add to the other girl’s ordeal; and she watched with amazement and dread as Hilary’s taut face relaxed, wondered at the discipline which let Hilary go limp. Callista forced herself to calm, to detachment, watching every step of the long and agonizing process of clearing the blocked nerve channels.

  When they were sure she wasn’t going to die, not this time anyway, they left her sleeping—Callista, feeling Hilary slip down into the heaviness of sleep under the sedative they had given her, felt almost light-headed with relief; at least she was free of pain! Damon went to find himself a delayed breakfast, and Leonie, in the hallway outside Hilary’s door, said softly, “I am sorry you had to endure that, little one, but it was time for you to learn; and you needed the practice in detachment. Come, she will sleep all day and perhaps most of the night, and when she wakes, she will be well. And next month we must make sure she does not overwork herself this way at this time.”

  When they were in Leonie’s rooms, facing one another over the small table set in the window, and Leonie was pouring for them from the heavy silver pot, Callista felt tears flooding the back of her throat. Leonie said quietly, “You can cry now, if you must, Callista. But it would be better if you could learn to master your tears, too.”

  Callista bent her head with a silent struggle; finally she said, “Leonie, it was worse this time, wasn’t it? She’s been getting worse, hasn’t she?”

  “I’m afraid so; ever since she began work with the energons. Last time it took her three days to build up enough energy leakage to go into crisis.”

  “Does she know?”

  “No. She doesn’t remember much of what happens when she’s in pain.”

  “But, Leonie, she wants, so terribly, not to disappoint you—” and so do I, thought Callista, struggling again with her tears.

  “I know, Callista, but she’ll die if she keeps this up. She is simply too frail to endure the stress. There may be some kind of inborn weakness in the channels—I am to blame, that I accepted her without being certain there was no such physical weakness. Yet she has such talent and skill—” Leonie shook her head sorrowfully. “You may not believe it, Callista, but I would gladly take all her pain upon myself if it would cure her. I feel I cannot bear to hurt her again like that!”

  Before the vehemence in the older woman’s voice Callista was shocked and amazed.

  Can she still feel? I thought she had taught herself to be wholly indifferent to the sufferings of others, as she would have me.

  “No,” Leonie said, with a remote sadness, “I am not indifferent to suffering, Callista.”

  But you hurt me so, this morning.

  “And I will hurt you again, as often as I must,” Leonie said, “but, believe me, child, I would so much rather . . .” She could not finish, but, in shock, Callista realized that she meant what she said; Leonie would willingly suffer for her, too . . . Suddenly, Callista know that instead of indifference, Leonie’s voice held agonized restraint.

  “My mother,” Callista burst out, through the restraint, “will I suffer so, when I am become a woman?”

  Could I endure it? Time and again, to be torn by that kind of pain . . . and then to be torn apart by the clearing process . . .

  “I do not know, child. I truly hope not.”

  Did you? But Callista knew she would never dare to put her unspoken question into words. Leonie’s restraint had gone so deep that even to herself she had probably barricaded even the memory of pain.

  “Isn’t there anything we can do?”

  “For Hilary? Probably not. Except to care for her while we can, and when it is truly too much for her to endure, release her.” It seemed to Callista that Leonie’s calm was sadder than tears or hysterical weeping. “But for you—I do not know. Perhaps. You might not wish it. If I had my way,” Leonie said, “every girl coming to work here as a Keeper would be neutered before she came to womanhood!”

  Callista flinched as if the Keeper had spoken an obscenity; indeed, by Comyn standards, she had. But she said obediently, “If that is your will, my mother—”

  Leonie shook her head. “The laws forbid it. I wonder if the Council knows what they are doing to you with their concern? But there is another way.
You know that we cannot begin your training until your cycles of womanhood are established—”

  “The monitors have said it will be more than a year.”

  “That is late, which means there is still time.”

  Callista had eagerly awaited the first show of blood, which would mean that she was a woman grown, ready to begin her serious training as a Keeper; now she had begun to think of it with dread.

  Leonie said, “If we were to begin your training now, it would make certain physical alterations in your body; and the cycles probably would not begin at all. This is why we are not supposed to begin this training until the Keeper-novice is come to womanhood; the training changes a body still immature. And then you would never have the problem Hilary has had . . . But I cannot do this without your consent, even to save you suffering.”

  To be spared what Hilary suffered? Callista wondered why Leonie should hesitate a moment.

  “Because it might mean much to you, when you are older,” Leonie said. “You might wish to leave, to marry.”

  Callista made a gesture of repugnance. She had been taught to turn her thoughts away from such things; in her innocence she felt only the most enormous contempt for the relationship between men and women. Secure in her chastity, she wondered why Leonie believed she could ever be false to the pledge she had sworn to perpetual virginity.

  “I will never wish to marry. Such things are not for me,” she said, and Leonie shook her head, with a little sigh.

  “It would mean that you would remain much as you are now, for the cycles would not begin . . .”

  “Do you mean I wouldn’t grow up?” Callista did not think she wished to remain always a child.

  “Oh, yes,” Leonie said, “you would grow up, but without that token of womanhood.”

  “But since I am sworn to be Keeper,” said Callista, who had been taught a considerable amount about anatomy and knew, at least technically, what that maturity meant, “I do not see why I should need it.”

  Leonie smiled faintly. “You are right, of course. I would that I had been spared it, all those many years.”

  Callista looked at her in surprise and wonder; never had Leonie spoken to her like this, or loosened even a little the cold barricade she kept against any kind of personal revelation.

  So she is not . . . not superhuman. She is only a woman, like Hilary or Romilla or . . . or me . . . she can weep and suffer . . . I thought, when I was grown, when I had learned my lessons well and had come to be Keeper, that I would learn not to feel such things or to suffer with them . . . It was a terrifying thought, a new terror among the terrors she had known here, that she would not safely outgrow these feelings. She had believed that her own sufferings were only because she was a child, not yet perfected in learning. I had believed that to be a Keeper one must outgrow these feelings, that one reason I was not yet ready was that I still had not learned to stop feeling so . . . .

  Leonie watched her without speaking, her face remote and sad.

  She is such a child, she is only now beginning to guess at the price of being Keeper . . . .

  But all she said aloud was, “You are right, of course, my dearest; since you are sworn to be Keeper, you do not need that, and you will be better without it, and if we should begin your training now, you will be spared.”

  Again she hesitated and warned, “You know it is against custom. You will be asked if I have fully explained it to you, what it will mean, and if you are truly willing; because I could not, under the laws made by those who have never stepped inside a Tower and would not be accepted if they did, do this to you without your free consent. Do you completely understand this, Callista?”

  And Callista thought, She speaks as if it were a great price I must pay, that I might be unwilling. As if it were deprivation, something taken from me. Instead it means only that I can be Keeper, and that I need not pay the terrible price Hilary has had to pay.

  “I understand, Leonie,” she said, steadily, “and I am willing. When can I begin?”

  “As soon as you like, Callista.”

  But why, Callista wondered, does Leonie look so sad?

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  The Lesson of the Inn

  Marion Zimmer Bradley

  Hilary Castamir rode head down, her gray cloak wrapped tightly about her, the cowl of her cloak concealing her face. She did not turn to look her last on Arilinn.

  She had failed . . . .

  She would never, now, be known as Hilary of Arilinn, or grow old in the service of the most ancient and prestigious of the Towers of the Seven Domains; revered, almost worshipped. Keeper of Arilinn. Never, now. She had failed.

  It would be Callista, then, who would take Leonie’s place when the old sorceress finally laid down her burden. I do not envy her, Hilary thought. And yet, paradoxically, Hilary knew that she did envy Callista.

  Callista Lanart. Thirteen years old, now. Red hair and gray eyes like all the Altons—like Hilary herself, for Hilary too had Comyn blood. Why should Callista succeed where she had failed?

  Leonie had tried to soften the blow.

  “My dearest child, you are neither the first nor the last to find a Keeper’s work beyond your strength. We all know what you have endured, but it is enough. We can ask no more of you.” Then she had spoken the formal words which released Hilary from the vows she had sworn at eleven years old. And half of Hilary was shaking with craven relief.

  Not to have to endure it anymore, never again to await, in helpless terror, the attacks of pain which swept over her at the time of her women’s cycles, never again to endure the excruciating clearing of the nerve channels . . . .

  Or worse than that, again and again, the desperate hope that this time it would be only the cramping, spasmodic pain, the weakness that drove her to bed, sick and exhausted and drained. That she could endure, she had endured; she had patiently swallowed all the medicines which were supposed to help it and somehow never did; she never lost the hope that this month the pain would simply subside as it did in the other women. But every month there was the terror, too, and the guilt. What is it I have done that I ought not to have done?

  What have I done? Why do I suffer so? I have faithfully observed all the laws of the Keepers, I have touched no man or woman, I have not even allowed myself to think forbidden thoughts . . . . Merciful Avarra, what am I doing wrong that I cannot keep the channels pure and untainted as befits a virgin and a Keeper?

  All the training she had endured, all the suffering, all the terror and the guilt, the guilt . . . all gone for nothing. And there was always the suspicion. Always when a Keeper could not keep her channels clear there was suspicion, never spoken aloud, but always there.

  The channels of a virgin, untainted, are clear. What is wrong with Hilary, that these nerve channels, these same channels which in an adult woman carry sexuality, cannot remain clear for unmixed use of laran? Even Leonie had looked at her in sharp question, a time or two, the unspoken doubt so clear to the telepath girl that Hilary had burst into hysterical crying, and even Leonie could not doubt the utter sincerity of bewilderment.

  I have not broken my vow, nor thought of breaking it. I have faithfully kept all the laws of a Keeper, I swear it, I swear it by Evanda and Avarra and by the Blessed Cassilda, mother of the Domains . . . .

  And so, in the end, Leonie had had no choice but to send Hilary away. Hilary was almost hysterical with relief that her long and agonizing ordeal was at an end; but she was still sick with guilt and terror. Who would ever believe in her innocence, who would believe that she had not been sent away in disgrace, her vows broken? Sunk in misery, she did not even turn to look her last on Arilinn.

  Seven years, then, gone for nothing. She would never again wear the crimson robes of a Keeper, nor work again in the relays . . . as they crossed the pass, there was one narrow space where they had to dismount and walk carefully along the narrow trail while the horses were led along the very rim of the chasm; and as she looked down into the dr
eadful gulf dropping away to the plains a thousand feet below, it came into her mind that she could take a single careless step, no, more, it would be so easy, an accident, and then she need never again face the thought of failure. No one could ever look at her, and whisper when she was not in the room that here was the Keeper who had been sent from Arilinn, no one knew why . . . .

  One single false step. So easy. And yet she could not summon up enough resolution to do it. You are a coward, Hilary Castamir, she told herself. She remembered that Leonie herself, and the young technician Damon Ridenow, who had sometimes come to help Leonie with the clearing of her channels, had praised her courage. They do not really know me; they do not know what a coward I am. Well, I will never see them again, it does not matter. Nothing really matters. Not now.

  Toward mid-afternoon, as they came down into a valley outside the ring of mountains which shut the Plains of Arilinn away from the outside world, they stopped at an inn to rest the horses. Her escort said that she would be conducted to a private parlor inside the inn, where she could warm herself and have some food if she wished. She was weary with riding, for she had risen very early this morning; she was glad of a chance to dismount, but when the escort, in automatic courtesy, offered her his help, she had scrambled down without touching him, so skillfully that she had not even brushed his outstretched hand.

  And when a strange man in the doorway held out his hand, with a soft, polite, “Mind the steps, damisela, they are slippery with the snow,” she had drawn back as if the touch of his hand would contaminate her beyond recall, and had opened her lips to flay him with harsh words. And then she remembered, with a dull sensation of weariness. She was not, now, wearing the crimson robes which would protect her against a careless touch, even a random look. Her gray hooded cloak was the ordinary traveling dress of any noblewoman; even though she shrouded her face deep within it, it would not wholly protect her. It seemed, as she went through the hallway to the inn, that she could feel eyes on her everywhere.

  Do all men, always, watch women this way? she wondered. And yet no man’s eyes had rested on her for more than a moment, as they might have rested on a horse or a pillar; it was only that they looked at her at all, that their eyes were not automatically withdrawn as they had been in Arilinn when she rode forth with the other women of the Tower, that everyone did not step aside, as she had been accustomed to their doing, waiting for her to pass.