Andrew said, “But we are only dreaming about it, and how can anyone forbid dreaming?” But he knew, guiltily, that a telepath must be responsible even for his dreams, and that even in dreams he could not go to Ellemir as he longed to do. Damon said, “But I told you, it is only a part of being what we are,” and Andrew turned his back on Damon and tried to get out of the structure, but the walls shut him in and enclosed him. Then Callista — or was it Ellemir? He could no longer be sure anymore, which of them was his wife — came to him, with a bunch of the kireseth flowers in her hand, and said, “Take them. Our children will eat of these fruits some day.”
Forbidden fruit. But he took them in his hand, biting the blossoms which were soft as a woman’s breasts, and the smell of the flowers was like a sting inside his mind.
Then lightning struck the walls, and the structure began to tremble and shake asunder, and through the collapsing walls Leonie was cursing them, and obscurely Andrew knew that it was all his fault because he had taken Callista away from her.
And then he was alone on the gray plain, and the landmark was very far away on the horizon. Although he walked for eternities, days, hours, aeons, he could not reach it. He knew that Damon and Callista and Ellemir were all inside, and they had found the answer and they were happy, but he was alone again, a stranger, never to be part of them again. As soon as he drew near the grayness expanded, elastic, and he was far away and the structure was on the far horizon again. And yet somehow at the same time he was inside his walls, and Callista was lying in his arms — or was it Ellemir, or somehow was he making love to them both at once? — and it was Damon who was wandering outside on the horizon, struggling to come near to the landmark, and never reaching it, never, never… He said to Ellemir, “You must take him some of the kireseth flowers,” but she turned into Callista, and said, “It is forbidden for the Tower-trained,” and he could not decide whether he was there, lying between the two women, or whether he was outside, wandering on the distant horizon… Somehow he knew he was trapped inside Damon’s dream, and he could not get out.
He woke with a start. Callista slept restlessly in the gray darkness of the room. He heard himself say, half aloud, “You will know what to do with them when it is time…” and then, wondering what he had meant, knew the words were part of Damon’s dream. Then he slept again, wandering in the gray and formless realms until dawn. Partly aware that it was not his own consciousness at all, he wondered if he were himself, or if he had somehow become entangled with Damon as well.
He found himself thinking, that precognition was almost worse than having no gift at all. If it were a warning, you could be guided by it. But it was just time out of focus, and even Leonie did not understand time. And Andrew in his own awareness wished Damon would keep his damned troubling dreams to himself.
It was a cold, bitter morning, with sleet falling. Damon felt that the sky reflected his own mood.
He had avoided this work for many years, now he was being forced into it again. And he knew, now, that it was not only for Callista’s sake. He had been wrong to renounce it so completely.
He had been misled by the taboo barring telepaths from matrix work outside the Towers. That taboo might, after the Ages of Chaos, have made some sense. But now he felt, with every nerve in him, that it was wrong.
There was so much work for telepaths to do. And it was being left undone.
He had built himself a new career, of sorts, in the Guardsmen, but it had never satisfied him completely. Nor could he find, as Andrew did, satisfaction and fulfillment in helping to manage the estate of his father-in-law. He knew that for many a younger son, without an estate of his own, this would have been a perfect solution: landless himself, to have an estate where his sons would share in the heritage. But it was not for Damon. He knew that any halfway skilled steward could do his work as well. He was there simply to assure that no unscrupulous paid employee took advantage of his wife’s father.
He did not begrudge the time spent on the work of the estate. His life was here with Ellemir, and it would tear him into fragments to be parted, now, from Andrew or from Callista.
It was different for Andrew. He had grown to manhood in a world not unlike this, and for him it was recovering a world he had thought lost forever when he left Terra. But Damon now had begun to guess that his real work was this, the work he had been trained in the Towers to do.
“Your part and Ellemir’s,” he told Andrew, “is simply to guard us against intrusion. If there are any interruptions — though I have tried to arrange that there will be none — you can deal with it. Otherwise you must simply remain in rapport and lend me your strength.”
Callista’s work was far more difficult. At first she had been reluctant to take part in this way, but he had managed to persuade her, and he was glad, for he could trust her completely. Like himself, she was Arilinn-trained, a skilled psi monitor, and knew precisely what was wanted. She would watch over his life functions and make sure that his body continued to function as it should while his essential self was elsewhere.
She looked pale and strange, and he knew she was reluctant to return to this work she had abandoned forever, not, like himself, out of fear or distaste, but because it had been such a wrench to abandon it. Having made the renunciation, she was reluctant to compromise.
Yet this was her own true work, Damon knew. It was what she was born and trained to do. It was wrong and cruel that a woman could not do this work without renouncing womanhood. For anything less than working among the great relays and screens, Callista would be completely qualified, were she married a dozen times and as many times a mother! Yet she was lost to the Towers, and it was no less a loss to her. It was a foolish notion, he considered, that with the loss of virginity she would be deprived of all the skills so painstakingly trained into her, and all the knowledge learned at such cost during all those years in Arilinn!
He thought, I do not believe it, and caught his breath. This was blasphemy, sacrilege unthinkable! Yet he looked at Callista and thought defiantly, Nevertheless, I do not believe it!
Yet he was violating the Tower taboo even in using her as a monitor. How stupid, how appallingly stupid!
Of course, legally he was doing nothing wrong. Callista, though she had declared intent to marry by a freemate ceremony, was not, in fact, Andrew’s wife. She was still a virgin, and therefore qualified… How stupid the whole thing was! How tragically stupid!
Something was wrong, he thought once again, terribly and tragically wrong with the whole concept of training telepaths on Darkover. Because of the abuses of the Ages of Chaos, because of the crimes of men and women dead so long that even their bones were dust, other men and women were condemned to a living death.
Callista asked gently, “What’s wrong, Damon? You look so angry!”
He could not explain it to her. She was still bound by the taboos, deep in her bones. He said, “I’m cold,” and left it at that. He had wrapped himself in a loose robe, which would at least protect his body from the awful chilling of the over-world. He noted that Callista had also substituted a long, warm wrapper for her ordinary housedress. He lay back in a padded armchair, while Callista made herself comfortable on a cushion at his feet. Andrew and Ellemir were a little further away, and Ellemir said, “When I kept watch for you, you had me stay physically in contact with the pulse spots.”
“You’re untrained, darling. Callista has been doing this work since she was a little girl. She could even monitor me from another room, if she had to. You and Andrew are basically superfluous, though it’s a help to have you both here. If something should interrupt us — I’ve given orders, but if, the Gods forbid, the house should take fire or Dom Esteban fall ill and need help — you can deal with it, and protect Callista and me from disturbance.”