I can go no further, Damon. The Gods guard you, kinsman.
He reached for her in panic, but she was gone, would not be born for hundreds of years. He was alone, dazed, wearied, in a vast twinkling foggy darkness, only the shadow of Arilinn behind. Where can I go? I could wander forever through the Ages of Chaos and learn nothing.
Neskaya. He knew that Neskaya was the center of the secret. He let Arilinn dissolve, felt himself move with thought to the Tower of Neskaya, outlined against the Kilghard Hills. It was like fording a cold mountain stream against a current which was trying to sweep him downstream to his own time. In the dim struggle he had almost lost track of his objective. Now, desperately, he reformed it: to find a Keeper in Neskaya before it was destroyed in the Ages of Chaos and then rebuilt. He struggled backward, backward, and saw Neskaya Tower lying in ruins, destroyed in the last of the great wars of that age, burned to ashes, the Keeper and all her circle slaughtered.
It was there again, not the sturdy cobblestone structure he had seen rising behind the walls of Neskaya City, but a tall, luminous, dim-glowing tower of pallid blue stone. Neskaya! Neskaya in the ages of its glory, before the Comyn had fallen to the poor remnant of today. He felt himself shuddering somewhere at the knowledge that he saw what no living man or woman of his time had ever seen, the Tower of Neskaya in the heyday of the Comyn.
A twinkling light began to dawn in the courtyard, and by its sparkle Damon saw a young man and remembered, in startlement and welcome, that he had seen this once before. He chose to interpret it as a sign. The young man was wearing green and gold, with a great sparkling ring on his finger — ring or matrix? Surely that delicate face, the green and gold clothing of an ancient cut, marked the young man as a Ridenow? Yes, Damon had seen him before, though briefly. He felt himself formulate with a curious emotional sense of relief. He knew that the body he wore on this complicated astral level was only an image, the shadow of a shadow. He was briefly aware of his own body, cold, comatose, cramped, a gasping tormented piece of flesh unimaginably elsewhere. The body he wore here in the higher level was unfettered, calm, easy. After such exhausting eternities of formlessness, even the shadow of form was a release of tension, almost an explosion of pleasure. A solid weight, blood he could feel pulsing in his veins, eyes that could see… The young man wavered, became firm. Yes, he was a Ridenow, a lot like Damon’s brother Kieran, the only brother Damon loved rather than tolerated with civility for their common blood.
Damon felt a rush of love for the stranger, who must have been one of his own remote forebears. He wore a long loose golden robe, cinctured with green, and surveyed Damon with a calm, kindly stare. He said, “By your face and your garments you are surely one of my own clan. Do you wander in a dream, kinsman, or do you seek me from another Tower?”
Damon said, “I am Damon Ridenow.” He began to say that he was not now a Tower worker, but it occurred to him that on this level time had no meaning. If all time co-existed — as it must — then the time when he had been psi technician was as real, as present, as the time when he lay in Armida, searching. “Damon Ridenow, Third in Arilinn Tower, technician by grade, under Wardship of Leonie of Arilinn, Lady Hastur.”
The young man said gently, “Surely you dream, or you are mad, or astray in time, kinsman. All the Keepers from Nevarsin to Hali are known to me, and there is no Leonie among them, nor no Hastur woman.” He smiled, not unkindly. “Shall I dismiss you to your own place, cousin, and your own time? These levels are dangerous, and no mere technician can tread them in safety. You may return when you have won the strength of Keeper, cousin, and that you have come here now shows me you have already that strength. But I can send you to a level that is safe for you, and wish for you as much caution as you have courage.”
“I am neither mad nor dreaming,” Damon said, “nor am I astray in time, though truly I am far from my own day. My Keeper sent me here, and it may be that you are whom I seek. Who are you?”
“I am Varzil,” said the young man, “Varzil of Neskaya, Keeper of the Tower.”
Keeper. Damon had been told of times when men were made Keepers. The young man used the word in a form he had never heard, however, tenerézu. When Leonie had told him of male Keepers, she had used the common form of the word, which was invariably feminine. Coming from Varzil, the word was a shock. Varzil! The legendary Varzil, called the Good, who had redeemed Hali after the Cataclysm destroyed the lake there. “In my day you are a legend, Varzil of Neskaya, remembered best as Lord of Hali.”
Varzil smiled. He had a calm, intelligent face, but it was alive with curiosity, without the withdrawn, remote, isolated quality of every Keeper Damon had ever known. “A legend, cousin? Well, I suppose legends lie in your day as in mine, and it might be well for me to know nothing of what lies ahead, lest I grow afraid, or arrogant. Tell me nothing, Damon. Yet one thing you have told already. For if a woman is Keeper in your day, then has my work succeeded and those who refused to believe a woman strong enough for Keeper have been silenced. So I know my work is not futile and will succeed. And since you have given me a gift, Damon, a gift of confidence, what can I give you in return? For you would not undertake a journey so far without some terrible need.”
“The need is not mine but my kinswoman’s,” Damon said. “She was trained to be Keeper at Arilinn, but has been released from her vows, to marry.”
“Need she be released for that?” Varzil asked. “But what is your need? Even in my day, kinsman, a Keeper is no longer surgically mutilated, or do you think me a eunuch?” He laughed with a gaiety which for some reason reminded Damon of Ellemir.
“No, but she is held halfway between Keeper and normal woman,” Damon said. “Her channels were fixed to the Keeper’s pattern when she was too young, before maturing, and she cannot readjust the channels to select for normal use.”
Varzil looked thoughtful. He said, “Yes, this can happen. Tell me, how old was she when she was trained?”
“Between thirteen and fourteen, I think.”
Varzil nodded. “I thought so. The mind writes deeply in the body, and the channels cannot readjust with the imprint of many, many years as a Keeper in her mind. You must lead her mind back to the days when her body was free, before the channels were altered and locked, and many years as Keeper froze the imprint into her nerve channels. Her mind once free, her body will free itself. When you take her through the sacrament next — But wait, are you sure the channels have not been surgically altered, nor the nerves cut?”
“No, it seems to have been done in pattern training with a matrix—”
Varzil shrugged. “Unnecessary, but not serious,” he said. “There are always some of the women who let their channels lock that way, but at the Year’s End festival the release comes. Some of our early Keepers were chieri, neither man nor woman, emmasca, and they too found themselves locked or frozen into that pattern. This, of course, is why we instituted the old sacramental rite of Year’s End. How you must love her, cousin, to come so far! May she bear you children who will be as much credit to your clan as their brave father.”
“She is not my wife,” Damon said, “but wedded to my sworn brother…” As soon as he had said that, he felt confused, for the words seemed to have no meaning to Varzil, who shook his head dismissingly.