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 undemanding 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…”