“Will it be enough for you to know that I had my reasons, Callista?”
“But why, Damon?” she insisted. “If you had asked, I would have given it to you, but—”
“But you would have asked why,” Damon said, his face drawn into lines of exhaustion and pain. “No, Callie, don’t try to read me.” His eyes were suddenly hard. “I took it for reasons that seemed good to me, and I am not going to tell you what they are. I may not need it, and if I do not I will return it to you, but for the moment I believe I may have a use for it. Leave it there, breda.”
She said, “Of course, if you insist, Damon.” She raised her cup and sipped, watching Damon with a troubled look. Her thoughts were easy to read: Damon is trained in the use of kirian, but he cannot make it, so what could he want with the raw herb? What can he possibly be going to do with it? I cannot believe he would misuse it, but what does he intend?
The servants dispersed. Dom Esteban asked if someone would care to play cards with him, or castles, the chess-like game Andrew was learning to play. Andrew agreed and sat studying the small cut-crystal pawns with surface absorption, but his mind was busy elsewhere. What could Damon have wanted with the kireseth? Damon had warned him not to handle or smell it, he remembered. Moving a pawn, and losing it to his father-in-law, it seemed that he could feel Damon’s thoughts leaking around the perimeter of his own emotions. He knew how much Damon hated and feared the matrix work he had been trained to do, had been forced to renounce, and had returned to against his will. Until Callista is free. And even then… There is so much that a telepath can do, so much undone… cutting off-Damon’s thoughts by main force, Andrew forced himself to concentrate on the board before him, lost three pawns in rapid succession, then made a major mistake in moving which cost him the major piece called the dragon. He conceded, saying apologetically, “Sorry, the shapes of those two still confuse me a little.”
“Never mind,” said the old man, graciously returning the mistakenly moved piece. “You are a better player, at that, than Ellemir, though she is the only one who has patience to play with me. Damon plays well, but seldom has the time. Damon? When Andrew and I have played this out, will you play the winner?”
“Not tonight, Uncle,” said Damon, rousing himself from deep abstraction, and the old man, glancing around the hall, noted that most of the housefolk had dispersed to their beds. Only his own body-servant, yawning, lingered before the fire. The Alton lord sighed, glanced at the angle of moonlight beyond the windows.
“I am selfish. I keep you young people here talking half the night, and Andrew has had a long ride, and has been parted a long time from his wife. I sleep so badly now, and the nights seem endless with no one to keep me company, so I tend to cling to you. Go along, all of you, to your own beds.”
Ellemir kissed her father good night and withdrew. Callista lingered to say a word to the old man’s body-servant. Damon turned to follow Ellemir, then hesitated in the doorway and came back.
“Father, there is an important piece of work to be done. Can you spare us for a few days?”
“Do you need to be away?”
“No away, no,” Damon said, “but I might need to put up dampers and a barrier and isolate the four of us. I can choose what time is best, but I would rather not delay too long.” He glanced at Callista, and Andrew caught the thought he tried to guard: She will die of grief…
“We will need at least three or four days, uninterrupted. Can that be arranged?”
The old man nodded, slowly. “Take what time you need, Damon. But for any long periods of work, it would be better to wait till Midwinter is past, and until the repairs from the storm have been completed. Is that possible?”
Andrew saw Dom Esteban’s disquieted gaze at Callista, and heard what he did not say: A Keeper who has given back her oath? He knew Damon heard it too, but Damon only said, “Possible, and we will do that. Thank you, Father.” He bent and embraced the older man. He watched him, frowning a little, as his servants wheeled him out of the room.
“He misses Dezi, I think. Whatever the lad’s faults, he was a good son to the old man. For his sake, perhaps, I wish we could have forgiven Dezi.” He sighed as they went up the stairs. “He is lonely. There is no one here now who is really company for him. I think, when the spring thaw comes, we must send for some kinsman or friend to bear his company.”
Callista was coming up the stairs behind them. Damon paused before turning away to go to his own suite.
“Callie, you were made Keeper very young, too young, I think. Did you take training for the other grades too? Are you monitor, mechanic or technician? Or did you only work in the central relays as tenerésteis ?” He used the archaic word usually rendered in casta as “Keeper” although “warden” or “guardian” would have been equally accurate.
“Why, you taught me to monitor yourself, Damon. It was my first year in the Tower and your last. By certificate I am only a mechanic; I never tried to do a technician’s work. There was no lack of technicians, and I had enough to do in the relays. Why?”
“I wanted to know what skills we had between us,” Damon said. “I reached the level of technician. I can build what lattices and screens we need, if I have the crystals and blank nodes. But I may need a mechanic, and I will certainly need a monitor, if I am to look for the answer I promised you, so be sure you don’t let yourself get out of condition to monitor if it is needed. Have you kept up your breathing?”
“I could not sleep without it. I suspect all of us trained there will do it all our lives,” she said, and Damon smiled, leaning forward and kissing her cheek very lightly.
“How well you know, sister. Sleep well. Good night, my brother,” he added to Andrew, and went away.
It was obvious that something was bothering Damon. Callista was sitting at her dressing table, braiding her long hair for the night. It reminded Andrew poignantly of another night, but he turned his thoughts away. Callista, still preoccupied with Damon, said, “He is more troubled than he wants us to know. I have known Damon for a long time. It is no use asking him anything he does not want to tell…”
But what could he possibly want with kireseth?
Andrew remembered with a flicker of jealousy that she had not shrunk from Damon’s light kiss on her cheek, but he knew what would happen if he tried it. Then, against his will, Andrew found himself thinking of Damon and Ellemir, together, reunited.
She was his wife, after all, and he, Damon, had no rights… none at all.
Callista put out the light and got into her own bed. Sighing, Andrew lay down, watching the four moons move across the sky. When he finally fell asleep he was not aware of it. It was as if he moved into some state of consciousness between reality and dreams. Damon had told him once that at times, in sleep, the mind moved into the overworld, without any conscious thought.
It seemed to him that he left his body behind and moved through the formless grayness of the overworld. Somewhere, everywhere, he could see and be aware of Damon and Ellemir making love, and while he knew they would welcome it if he joined them, linked with their joyous rapport and closeness, he kept turning away his eyes and his mind from the sight. He wasn’t a voyeur; he wasn’t that depraved, not yet, not even here.
After a long time he found the structure they had built for working with the frostbitten men. He was afraid he would find them there too, as they seemed to be everywhere at once, but Ellemir was sleeping and Damon was sitting on a log, dejectedly, a bunch of dried kireseth flowers lying at his side.
He asked, “What did you want with them, Damon?” and the other man said, “I am not sure. Why do you think I could not explain it to Callista? It is forbidden. Everything is forbidden. We should not be here at all.”