Marion Bradley - The Forbidden Tower

“But Damon,” she said reasonably, “I have always heard — Callista has told me — it is dangerous to use these powers outside the Towers.”

“Flummery!” Damon exclaimed. “Are you so superstitious, Elli? You yourself have been in contact with Callista. Did you find it so dangerous?”

“No,” she said uneasily, “but during the Ages of Chaos, so many terrible things were done with the great matrix screens, such terrible weapons — fire-forms, and wind-creatures to tear down castles and whole walls, and creatures from other dimensions walking abroad in the land — that they decreed in those days that all matrix work should be done only in the Towers, and only under safeguards.”

“But that time is past, Ellemir, and most of those enormous, illegal matrix weapons were destroyed during the Ages of Chaos, or in the days of Varzil the Good. Do you really think that because I healed four men’s frozen feet and restored to them the ability to use their limbs, that I am likely to send a fire-form raging in the forest, or raise a cave-thing to blight the crops?”

“No, no, of course not.” She sat up, holding out her arms to him. “Lie down, rest, my dearest, you are so weary.”

He let her help him undress, and lay down at her side, but he went on, staring stubbornly into the darkness.

“Elli, there is something very wrong with the use we are making of telepaths here on Darkover. Either they must live guarded all their lives within the Towers, hardly human — you know that it nearly destroyed me when I was sent from Arilinn — or else they must give up everything they have learned. Like Callista — Evanda pity her,” he added, a flicker of consciousness still in link with Andrew, looking down at the sleeping Callista, traces of tears still on her face. “She has had to give up everything she ever learned, everything she has ever done. She is afraid to do anything else. There ought to be a way, Elli, there ought to be a way!”

“Damon, Damon,” she entreated, holding him close, “it has always been so. The Tower-trained are wiser than we are; they must know what they are about when they ordain it so!”

“I am not so sure.”

“In any case, there is nothing we can do about it now, my dearest. You must rest now, and calm yourself, or you will disturb her ,” she said, taking Damon’s hand in her own and laying it against her body. Damon, knowing he was being deliberately diverted, but willing to go along with it — after all, Ellemir was right — smiled, letting himself begin to pick up the formless, random emanations — not yet thoughts — of the unborn child. “ Her , you said?”

Ellemir laughed softly in delight. “I am not sure how I know, but I am certain of it. A little Callista, perhaps?”

Damon thought, I hope her life will be happier. I would not wish to see the hand of Arilinn laid on any daughter of mine … Then he suddenly shuddered, in a flick of precognition seeing a slender red-haired woman, in the crimson robes of a Keeper in Arilinn… She tore them from neck to ankle, rending them, casting them aside… He blinked. It was gone. Precognition? Or was it a dramatization, an hallucination, born of his own disquiet? Holding his wife and child in his arms, he tried to put it all aside for the time.

The frostbitten men were recovering, but with so many men disabled, an extra share of the actual physical work fell on Andrew, and even Damon took a hand now and then. The weather had moderated, but Dom Esteban told them this was only a break before the real winter storms would sweep down from the Hellers, layering the foothills deep in snow for months.

Damon had offered to ride to Serrais with Andrew, and bring back some surplus men from the estate there, to work for the estate through the winter, and help with the crops in the early spring. The journey would last more than a tenday. They were making plans in the Great Hall of Armida that morning. Ellemir’s morning sickness had subsided, and, as usual, she was in the kitchens, supervising the women with their work. Callista was seated beside her father when suddenly she sat upright with a look of disquiet. She said, “Oh — Elli, Elli — oh, no — !” But even before she was on her feet Damon’s chair crashed over backward and he ran toward the kitchens. At that moment there were cries of dismay from the other rooms.

Dom Esteban grumbled, “What’s wrong with those women?” but no one was listening. Callista had run toward the kitchen door. After a moment Damon came hurrying back, beckoned to Andrew,

“Ellemir has fainted. I do not want any stranger touching her now. Can you carry her?”

Ellemir lay in a crumpled heap on the kitchen floor, surrounded by staring, crowding women. Damon motioned them away, and Andrew picked up Ellemir. Her pallor was frightening, but Andrew knew nothing about pregnant women, and fainting like this, he supposed, was not so alarming.

“Carry her to her room, Andrew. I will go and call Ferrika.”

By the time Andrew laid Ellemir on her own bed Damon was there with the woman. His hands closed on Ellemir’s as he slipped into rapport with her, searching for the faint, formless contact with the unborn. Even as he felt in his own body the painful spasms racking Ellemir’s, he knew, in anguish, what was happening. He begged, “Can’t you do anything?”

Ferrika said gently, “I will do all I can, Lord Damon,” but over her bent head, Damon met Callista’s eyes. They were full of tears. She said, “Ellemir is not in danger, Damon. But it’s already too late for the baby.”

Ellemir clutched at Damon’s hands. “Don’t leave me,” she begged, and he murmured, “No, love. Never. I’ll stay with you.” This was custom; no telepath Comyn of the Domains left his wife alone while she bore their child, or shrank from sharing her ordeal. And now he must strengthen Ellemir for their loss, not for joy. Fighting back his own anguished grief, he knelt beside her, holding her in his arms, cradling her against him.

Andrew had gone downstairs again to Dom Esteban, with nothing to tell except that Damon was with her, and Callista, and they had sent for Ferrika. He felt the pall that lay over the estate, all that day. Even the maids clustered in frightened huddles. Andrew wanted to reach out for Damon, to try to strengthen him, reassure him, but what could he do or say? Once, looking up the stairs, he saw Dezi coming from the outer hall, and Dezi asked “How is Ellemir?” and Andrew’s resentment against the youngster overflowed.

“Much you care!”

“I don’t wish Elli any harm,” Dezi said, queerly subdued. “She’s the only one here who’s ever been decent to me.” He turned his back on Andrew and went away, and Andrew had the odd sense that Dezi, too, was near to tears.

Damon and Ellemir had been so happy about their baby, and now this! Andrew wondered wildly if his own ill luck had somehow proved contagious, if the trouble of his own marriage had somehow rubbed off on the other couple. Realizing that this was absolute insanity, he went down to the greenhouse and tried to lose himself in giving orders to the gardeners.

Hours later, Damon came out of the room where Ellemir lay, asleep now, pain and grief alike forgotten in one of Ferrika’s sleeping draughts. The midwife, pausing for a moment beside him, said gently, “Lord Damon, better now than for the poor little thing to live to birth and be born deformed. The mercy of Avarra takes strange forms.”

“I know you did what you could, Ferrika.” But Damon turned away, unstrung, not wanting the woman to see him weeping. She understood, and went quietly down the stairs, and Damon went blindly along the hall, shrinking from the need to tell Dom Esteban. By instinct he headed toward the greenhouse, finding Andrew there. Andrew came toward him, asking gently, “How is Ellemir? Is she out of danger?”