The Forbidden Circle (79 page)

But with the flame he also felt the awareness of a legend in Andrew’s mind:
Burn us and we will rise again like a phoenix from the ashes
. . . . Reaching with all his last strength through the fire and the burning which threatened to drive them all from the overworld, Damon linked them closer still. Together they poured all their psychic force into the shifting stuff of the overworld, linking into a giant bird, feathers blazing, burning up in the ecstatic union which consumed them, their four linked minds joined. In Andrew’s mind Damon felt them curled naked together, inside a darkness; inside an unhatched egg, while the flames wholly consumed them, burned them down into ash. Then, in an ever-expanding ecstasy, the shell around them broke and they burst upward from the ashes, spreading mighty wings in a single, linked burst of flaming energy, soaring over Arilinn, triumphant. . . . From the phoenix beak came thunder, lightning, shaking and rumbling the Tower of Arilinn. Damon saw, as if far below, the small forms of Leonie and her circle, watching in despair and dread.

Damon knew that he did not wish to destroy Arilinn. It had been his home. He had suffered there unendurably, as Callista had suffered, yet he had been trained there too, disciplined, taught to use the utmost strength and control. His training in Arilinn was at the basis of what he was now, of what he might eventually become. Arilinn should stand forever, in overworld and real world, a home for telepaths, a symbol of what Tower training had been and might some day be again. The strength and power of the Domains.

But Leonie’s voice was shaken, almost inaudible.

“No, Damon, strike us down. Destroy us utterly, as you have destroyed all we stand for.”

“No, Leonie.” And now, suddenly, they stood facing one another on the gray plain of the overworld. And he knew—and knew that Leonie shared the thought—that he could never harm her. He loved her, had always loved her, would always love her.

“And I love you too,” Callista said tenderly at his side. She stretched her hands to Leonie, then, as she had never done in the real world, she took Leonie in her arms, holding the woman against her in a tender, loving embrace. “But Leonie, my beloved foster-mother, can you not see what it is that Damon has done?”

Leonie said, shaking, “He has destroyed the Towers. And you, Callista, you have betrayed us all!” She shrank from the girl, staring at her in horror. Damon, linked with her now, knew that she could
see
what had happened to Callista, that she was a woman, loving, loved, fulfilled—not Keeper in the old sense at all, yet wielding the full power of her training and her strength. “Callista, Callista, what have you done?”

Damon answered, gently but unyielding, “We have discovered the old way of working, where a Keeper need not sacrifice life and all the joy of living.”

Then my life was useless, my sacrifice needless.
And, with a despair Damon could neither measure nor endure:
Let me die now.

He could see
through
her, with the new sight of a Keeper, and he saw in horror what she had done to herself. Why had he never guessed? She had sent him from the Tower to remove forever the temptation that he might lose control and reveal his desire for her. But to remove her
own
temptation? The laws forbade the neutering of a Comyn woman, and she had stopped short of that with Callista.

But for herself?

He said with an anguished compassion, “Not needless, Leonie. You and all those like you have kept the tradition alive, kept the matrix sciences of Darkover alive, so that some day this rediscovery might be made. Your heroism has made it possible for our children and grandchildren to use the old sciences without so much suffering and tragedy. I do not want to destroy the Towers, only to take some of the burden from you, to make it possible to train others outside the Towers, so that you need not give up your lives, so that the price need not be so cruelly high. You, and all of us who have come from Arilinn and the other Towers, have kept the flame alive, even though you fed it with your own flesh and blood.” He stood disarmed before them all, knowing they could strike him down now, but also
knowing
, with that deep inner knowledge, that now they heard what he said.

“Now the living flame can be rekindled, and it need not feed on your very lives. Leonie”—he turned to her again, his hands held out in pleading—“if you could break under the strain, you, a Hastur, and Lady of Arilinn, then it is surely a burden too heavy for any mortal man or woman. No one alive could have borne it without breaking. Let us work, Leonie, let us go on as we have begun, so that a day will come when once again the men and women who come to the Towers can find joy in their work, not endless sacrifice and a living death!”

Slowly Leonie bowed her head. She said, “I acknowledge you Keeper, Damon. You are beyond harm or vengeance at our hands. We merit any penalty you choose to invoke.”

He said, his heart aching, “I can inflict on you no penalty greater than you have laid on yourself, Leonie, the self-chosen sentence you must continue to bear until another generation is strong enough to carry it. Avarra grant in her mercy that you will be the last Keeper of Arilinn to face such a living death, but Keeper of Arilinn you must remain, until Janine can bear the burden alone.”

And your only punishment will be to know that for you it is too late.
Torn with Leonie’s agony, he knew it had always been too late for her. It was too late when, at fifteen, she went into the Dalereuth Tower under the vows of a Keeper. He saw her receding, further and further, like a star dimming out in the morning light. He saw the Tower of Arilinn itself receding on the fluid horizon of the overworld, till it dwindled in the distance, shone with a faint blue light, was gone. Damon and Andrew, Ellemir, and Callista were alone in the forbidden Tower, and then, with a sharp shock, the overworld too was gone, and they were in the suite in Comyn Castle. The peaks beyond the window were flooded with sunlight, but the great red sun had barely cleared the horizon.

Sunrise. And the fate of the four of them, and the fate, perhaps, of all the telepaths on Darkover, had been settled in an astral battle lasting less than a quarter of an hour.

EPILOGUE

“You are a fool, Damon,” said Lorenz, Lord of Serrais, with deep disgust. “You have always been a fool and you will always be a fool! You could have been regent of Alton and commanded the Guards long enough to break the hold of the Altons on that office and give it to the Domain of Serrais!”

Damon laughed good-naturedly. “But I do not want to be commander,” he said, “and now there is no need.
Dom
Esteban is likely to live as long as needful to bring Valdir to manhood, and perhaps more.”

Lorenz looked at him with suspicion and distrust. “How did you do that? We had heard he was at death’s door!”

“Exaggerated,” Damon said with a shrug, knowing that this would be his lifework, to study the ways of healing with matrix and monitor.

The principle once vindicated, it had not been difficult to go into the damaged heart, remove the blockages and restore the heart to full function. Esteban Lanart, Lord Alton, would be paralyzed for the rest of his life, but a man could command the Guards from a wheeled chair. When it was needful to take the field, young Danvan Hastur or Kieran Ridenow could command in his place. Damon was regent of the Domain only in name now, as a contingency against accident or ill luck. Precognition was not the main gift of either Alton or Ridenow, but he had a flash of it now, knowing that Valdir would assume the wardship of Alton as a grown man, and that he would be one of the most innovative Altons ever to rule the Domain.

Lorenz said in disgust, “Have you no ambition at all, Damon?”

“More ambition than you can imagine,” Damon said, “but it takes a different form than yours, Lorenz. And now, I fear, we must part, since we have a long way to ride. We are returning to Armida. Ellemir’s child is next heir to the Domain, and he must be born there.”

Lorenz bowed with an ill grace. Andrew, riding just behind Damon, he ignored, but he saluted Ellemir courteously, and Callista with something like real respect. Damon turned to embrace his brother Kieran.

“You will visit us at Armida in the autumn, when you return to Serrais?”

“I will indeed,” Kieran said, “and I hope then to see Ellemir’s son. Who knows, he may command the Guards someday!” He dropped back, leaving the Guardsmen who were to accompany Damon and his party on their journey to ride ahead of them. Damon was about to give the signal for the rest to ride when he saw a slender woman, cloaked and hooded as was seemly for a
comynara
before this great company, coming down the stairs from the courtyard of Comyn Castle. Instinct told him who she was, or was it only that nothing now could have hidden Leonie of Arilinn from his sight?

So he did not mount, but signaled to his groom to hold the horse ready and went toward her, meeting her at the foot of the steps.

“Leonie,” he said, bowing over her hand.

“I came to say farewell, and to give Callista my blessing,” she said quietly.

Andrew bowed deeply as Damon led her past, toward Callista, who stood ready to mount her gray mare. Leonie raised her head, and it seemed to Andrew that the old woman’s eyes burned out from the depths of a skull, blazing resentment at him, but she inclined her head formally, saying, “Good fortune attend you.” She reached out her hands then, and Callista just touched her fingertips, the faint feather-touch of telepath to telepath.

Leonie said quietly, “Take my blessing, child. You know now how deeply I mean it, and how much good fortune I wish for you.”

“I know,” Callista whispered. The resentment had gone. What Leonie had done had been difficult to endure, but it had made this deeper breakthrough possible, had brought her to what she now knew was the deepest possible fulfilment. She and Andrew might have come together without harm, and lived together happily, but she would have given up her
laran
forever, as it was always assumed a Keeper must do. She knew now that she would have lived the rest of her life only half alive. She raised Leonie’s fingertips to her lips and kissed them, reverently and with deep love.

It was too late for Leonie, Callista knew, but now she no longer grudged their happiness.

Leonie turned to Ellemir, making a gesture of blessing. Ellemir bowed her head, accepting without returning the greeting, and Leonie turned to Damon. Again, in silence, he bowed over her hand, not raising his eyes to hers. It had all been said; there was nothing further to be said or done between them. He knew they would not meet again. Enormous, uncrossable distances lay between Arilinn and the forbidden Tower, and it had to be so. From Damon’s work a whole new science of matrix mechanics would spring, to remove the terrible burden from the Towers. She made the gesture of blessing again, and turned away.

Damon mounted his horse in silence and they rode through the gates, Andrew riding with Callista at the head of the party, then servants, retainers, and banner-bearers. At the end rode Damon, with Ellemir at his side. He felt that his heart would break. He had his happiness, such happiness as he had never deemed possible. But his happiness was built on the lives of Leonie and others like her, who had kept the knowledge alive. Cassilda, mother of the Domains, he prayed, grant that we never forget, or hold their sacrifice lightly. . . .

He rode with his head bent, grieving, until he saw Ellemir’s sorrowful eyes on his and knew that he must not continue to sorrow like this.

For the rest of his life he would remember and regret, but it must be a private grief, almost a secret luxury. Now his face must be turned firmly toward the future.

There was work to do. Work perhaps too trivial for the Towers, but important: work like the repair to
Dom
Esteban’s heart, like the work he had done to save the feet and hands of the frostbitten men. And more important still, testing the outer limits of who could actually be matrix-trained. Callista, as promised, had already taught Ferrika to monitor. She was an apt pupil and would learn more. And in the years to come there would be others.

Ellemir shifted her weight in the saddle and Damon said anxiously, “You must not tire yourself, my love. Should you truly ride now?”

Ellemir laughed gaily. “Ferrika is waiting to order me into the horse-litter, but for now I will ride in the sunshine.”

Together they rode forward, past the servants, the piled pack animals, to where Callista and Andrew rode side by side.

As they went through the pass, Andrew took a last, fleeting look at the Terran spaceport. He might never see it again, but surely the Terrans would be there for the rest of his life. Perhaps Valdir’s attitude toward the Terrans would be different, because he had known Andrew well, not as a strange alien, but a man like themselves, the husband of his sister.

But all that was the future. He turned his eyes from the spaceport without a backward look. His world lay elsewhere now.

They rode down from the pass and the spaceport was gone. But Callista could hear the thunder of one of the great ships, and trembled a little. It made her think, too much, of the changes which had come to Darkover, of all the changes which would come, whether she knew of them or not. But she thought that if she could have endured all the changes of the last year, surely she could face what would come after this. She also had work to do, sharing Damon’s work, and thinking, as well, of her coming child.

But the coming world would be for her children to face. All she could do was prepare them, and try to make a better world for them to live in. She had already begun. She reached for Andrew’s hand, enjoying the simple awareness that it could lie in hers and she felt no need or desire to pull it away. As Damon and Ellemir joined them, she smiled. Whatever changes would come, they would face them together.