Read The Forbidden Circle Online
Authors: Marion Zimmer Bradley
The Forbidden Circle (47 page)
And then he saw the girl.
And the voice in his mind whispered.
This has all happened before.
She was wearing a flimsy and torn nightdress, and he could see her pale flesh dimly through the rents in the gown, but it did not flutter or move in the raging winds that tore him, and her hair was unstirring in the raging storm. She was not there at all, she was a ghost, a dream, a girl who never was, and yet he knew, on another level of reality, she was Callista, she was his wife. Or had that been only a dream within a dream, dreamed while he was lying in the storm, and he would lie there and follow the dream until he died . . . ? He began to struggle, heard himself cry out . . .
This has all happened before.
She was wearing a flimsy and torn nightdress, and he could see her pale flesh dimly through the rents in the gown, but it did not flutter or move in the raging winds that tore him, and her hair was unstirring in the raging storm. She was not there at all, she was a ghost, a dream, a girl who never was, and yet he knew, on another level of reality, she was Callista, she was his wife. Or had that been only a dream within a dream, dreamed while he was lying in the storm, and he would lie there and follow the dream until he died . . . ? He began to struggle, heard himself cry out . . .
And the blizzard was gone. He was lying in his own bedroom at Armida. The storm was raging and dying away outside, but the bedroom fire had burned to dim coals. By its light he could dimly see Callista—or was it Ellemir, who had slept at her side ever since the night when the psi reflex she could not control had blasted them both down, in the midst of their love?
For the first few days after Dezi’s attempted murder he had done little except sleep, suffering from the after-effects of mild concussion, shock, and explosure. He touched the unhealed cut on his forehead. Damon had taken out the stitches a day or two ago, and the edges were beginning to scab cleanly. There would be a small scar. He needed no scar to remind him of how he had been torn from Callista’s arms, a force like lightning striking through her body. He recalled that it used to be a favorite form of torture, in the old days on Terra, an electrode to the genitals. It hadn’t been Callista’s fault though, the shock of knowing what she had done had nearly killed her too.
She was still abed, and it seemed to Andrew that she grew no better. Damon, he knew, was worried about her. He dosed her with odd-smelling herbal potions, discussing her condition at length in words of which Andrew understood perhaps one in ten. He felt like the fifth leg on a horse. And even when he began to mend, to want to be out and about, he could not even lose himself in the normally heavy work of the horse ranch. With the blizzard season, all had come to a dead halt. A handful of servants, using underground tunnels, tended the saddle horses and the dairy animals which provided milk for the household. A handful of gardeners cared for the greenhouses. Andrew was nominally in charge of all these, but there was nothing for him to do.
Without Callista, he knew, there was really nothing to hold him here, and he had not been alone with Callista for a moment since the fiasco. Damon had insisted that Ellemir sleep at her side, that she must never, even in sleep, be allowed to feel herself alone, and that her twin was better for this purpose than any other.
Ellemir had nursed her tirelessly, night and day. On one level Andrew was grateful for Ellemir’s tender care, there being so little he could do for Callista now. But at the same time he resented it, resented his isolation from his wife, the way in which it emphasized the fragility of the thread that bound him to Callista.
He would have cared for her, nursed her, lifted her . . . but they would never leave him alone with her for a moment, and this too, he resented. Did they really think that if they left Callista alone, Andrew would fall on her again like a wild animal, that he would rape her? Damn it to hell, he thought, it was more likely that he was always going to be scared to touch her even with a fingertip. I just wanted to be with her. They told him she needed to know that he still loved her, and then they acted as if they didn’t dare leave them together for a minute. . . .
Realizing that he was merely going over and over, obsessionally, frustrations about which he could do nothing, he turned over restlessly and tried to sleep again. He heard Ellemir’s quiet breathing, and Callista’s restless sigh as she turned over. He reached for her with his thoughts, felt the touch dimly on his mind. She was deep asleep, drugged with another of Damon’s or Ferrika’s herb medicines. He wished he knew just what they were giving her, and why. He trusted Damon, but he wished Damon would trust
him
a little more.
him
a little more.
And Ellemir’s presence too was a low-keyed irritation, so like her twin, but healthy and rosy where Callista was pale and ill . . . Callista as she should have been. Pregnancy, even though frustrated so soon, had softened her body, emphasizing the contrast to Callista’s sharp thinness. Damn it, he shouldn’t think about Ellemir. She was his wife’s sister, his best friend’s wife, the one woman of all women forbidden to him. Besides, she was a telepath, she’d be picking up the thought, and it would embarrass hell out of her. Damon had told him once that among a telepathic family a lustful thought was the psychological equivalent of rape. He didn’t care a damn about Ellemir—she was just his sister-in-law—it was just that she made him think of Callista as she might be if she were healthy and well and free of the grip of the forever-be-damned Tower.
She was so gentle with him. . . .
After a long time he drifted off to sleep and began to dream again.
He was in the little herdsman’s shelter where Callista, moving through the overworld, the world of thought and illusion, had led him through the blizzard, after the crash of the plane. No, it was not the herdsman’s shelter; it was the strange illusory walled structure that Damon had built up in their minds, not real except in their visualization, but having its own solidity in the realm of thought, so he could see the very bricks and stones of it. He woke, as he had done then, in dim light, to see the girl lying beside him, a shadowy form, stilled, sleeping. As he had done then, he reached for her, only to find that she was not there at all, that she was not on this plane at all, but that her form, through the overworld, which she had explained as the energy-net double of the real world, had come to him through space and perhaps time as well, taking shape to mock him. But she had not mocked him.
She looked at him with a grave smile, as she had done then, and said with a glimmer of mischief, “Ah, this is sad. The first time, the very first time, I lie down with any man, and I am not able to enjoy it.”
“But you are here with me now, beloved,” he whispered, and reached for her, and this time she was there in his arms, warm and loving, raising her mouth for his kiss, pressing herself to him with shy eagerness, as once she had done, but only for a moment.
“Doesn’t this prove to you that it is time, love?” He drew her against him, and their lips met, their bodies molded one to the other. He felt again all the ache and urgency of need, but he was afraid. There was some reason why he must not touch her . . . and suddenly, at the moment of tension and fear, she smiled up at him and it was Ellemir in his arms, so like and so unlike her twin.
He said “No!” and drew away from her, but her hands, small and strong, drew him down close to her. She smiled at him and said, “I told Callista to tell you that I am willing, as it was told in the ballad of Hastur and Cassilda.” He looked around, and he could see Callista, looking at them and smiling. . . .
And he woke with a start of shock and shame, sitting up in bed and staring wildly around to reassure himself that nothing had happened, nothing. It was daylight, and Ellemir, with a sleepy yawn, slid from the bed, standing there in her thin nightgown. Andrew quickly looked away from her.
She did not even notice—he was not a man to her at all—but would continue to walk around in front of him half dressed or undressed, keeping him continually on edge with a low-keyed frustration that was not really sexual at all. . . . He reminded himself that he was on
their
world, and it was for him to get used to
their
customs, not force his own on them. It was only his own state of frustration, and the shaming realism of the dream, which made him almost painfully aware of her. But as the thought clarified in his mind, she turned slowly and looked full at him. Her eyes were grave, but she smiled, and suddenly he remembered the dream, and
knew
that she had shared it somehow, that his thoughts, his desire, had woven into
her
dreams.
their
world, and it was for him to get used to
their
customs, not force his own on them. It was only his own state of frustration, and the shaming realism of the dream, which made him almost painfully aware of her. But as the thought clarified in his mind, she turned slowly and looked full at him. Her eyes were grave, but she smiled, and suddenly he remembered the dream, and
knew
that she had shared it somehow, that his thoughts, his desire, had woven into
her
dreams.
What the hell kind of man am I, anyhow? My wife’s lying there sick enough to die, and I’m going around with a lech for her twin sister
. . . . He tried to turn away, hoping Ellemir would not pick up the thought.
My best friend’s wife
.
. . . . He tried to turn away, hoping Ellemir would not pick up the thought.
My best friend’s wife
.
Yet the memory of the words in the dream hung in his mind:
I told Callista to tell you that I am willing
. . . .
I told Callista to tell you that I am willing
. . . .
She smiled at him, but she looked troubled. He felt that he ought to blurt out an apology for his thoughts. Instead she said, very gently, “It’s all right, Andrew.” For a moment he could not believe that she had actually spoken the words aloud. He blinked, but before he thought what to say, she had gathered up her clothes and gone away into the bath.
He went quietly to the window and looked at the dying storm. As far as he could see, everything lay white, faintly reddened with the light of the great red sun, peering faintly through the stained edges of the clouds. The winds had whipped the snow into ice-cream ridges, lying like waves of some hard white ocean, sweeping back all the way to the distant blurring hills. It seemed to Andrew that the weather refuted his mood: gray, bleak, insufferable.
How fragile a tie, after all, bound him to Callista! And yet he knew he could never go back. He had discovered too many depths within himself, too many alien strange nesses. The old Carr, the Andrew Carr of the Terran Empire, had wholly ceased to exist on that faraway day when Damon placed them all in rapport through the matrix. He closed his fingers on it, hard and chill in the little insulated bag around his neck, and knew it was a Darkovan gesture, one he had seen Damon make a hundred times. In that automatic gesture, he knew again the strangeness of his new world.
He could never go back. He must make a new life for himself here, or go through what years remained to him as a ghost, a nothingness, a nonentity.
Until a few nights ago he had believed himself well on the way to building his new life. He had worthwhile work to do, a family, friends, a brother and sister, a second father, a loving and beloved wife. And then, in a blast of unseen lightning, his whole new world had crumbled around him and all the alienness had closed over him again. He was drowning in it, sinking in it. . . . Even Damon, usually so close and friendly, his brother, had turned cold and strange.
Or was it Andrew himself who now saw strangeness in everything and everyone?
He saw Callista stir, and, suddenly apprehensive lest his thoughts should disturb her, gathered up his clothes and went away to bathe and dress.
When he came back, Callista had been wakened, and Ellemir had readied her for the day, dressing her in a clean nightgown, washing her, braiding her hair. Breakfast had been brought, and Damon and Ellemir were there, waiting for him around the table where the four of them had taken their meals during Callista’s illness.
But Ellemir was still standing over Callista, troubled. As Andrew came in, she said, and her voice held deep disquiet, “Callista, I wish you would let Ferrika look at you. I know she is young, but she was trained in the Amazon’s Guildhouse, and she is the best midwife we have ever had at Armida. She—”
“The services of a midwife,” said Callista, with a trace of wry amusement, “are of all things the last I need, or am likely to need!”
“All the same, Callista, she is skilled in all manner of women’s troubles. She could certainly do more for you than I. Damon,” she appealed, “what do you think?”
He was standing at the window, looking out into the snow. He turned and looked at them, frowning a little. “No one has more respect than I for Ferrika’s talents and training, Elli. But I do not know if she would have the experience to deal with this. It is not commonplace, even in the Towers.”
Andrew said, “I don’t understand this at all! Is it still only the onset of menstruation? If it is as serious as this, perhaps,” and he appealed directly to Callista, “could it do any harm for Ferrika to look you over?”
Callista shook her head. “No, that has ended, a few days ago. I think”—she looked up at Damon, laughing—“I am simply lazy, taking advantage of a woman’s weakness.”
“I wish it were that, Callista,” Damon said, and he came and sat down at the table. “I wish I thought you would be able to get up today.” He watched her slowly, with lagging fingers, buttering a piece of the hot nut-bread. She put it to her mouth and chewed it, but Andrew did not see her swallow.
Ellemir broke a piece of bread. She said, “We have a dozen kitchen maids, and if I am out of the kitchen for a day or two, the bread is not fit to eat!”
Andrew thought the bread was much as usual: hot, fragrant, coarse-textured, the flour extended with the ground nut-meal which was the common staple food on Darkover. It was fragrant with herbs, and tasted good, but Andrew found himself resenting the strange coarse texture, the unfamiliar spices. Callista was not eating either, and Ellemir seemed troubled. She said, “Can I send for something else for you, Callista?”
Callista shook her head. “No, truly, I can’t, Elli. I am not hungry—”
She had eaten almost nothing in days. In God’s name, Andrew thought, what ails her?
Damon said, with sudden roughness, “You see, Callista? It is what I told you! You have been a matrix worker how long—nine years? You know what it means when you cannot eat!”
Her eyes looked frightened. She said, “I’ll try, Damon. Really I will,” and took a spoonful of the stewed fruit on her plate, choking it down reluctantly. Damon watched her, troubled, thinking that this was not what he had intended, to force her to pretend hunger when she had none. He said, staring out over the whipped-cream ridges of snow, purpling with the light, “If the weather would clear, I would send to Neskaya. Perhaps the
leronis
could come to look after you.”
leronis
could come to look after you.”
“It looks like clearing now,” Andrew said, but Damon shook his head.
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