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some poor hunter clawed by a hunting-beast or kicked in the head by an
 
oudrakhi
 
?”

“Well,” said Ellemir, puzzled, but trying to follow his vehemence, “in the Towers they have other things

to do. Important things. Communications. And… and mining, and all of those things. They would have no

time to look after wounds.”

“That’s true. But listen, Elli, all over Darkover there are men like Dezi, or women like Callista, or like you. Women and men who cannot, do not
 
want
to spend their lives in a Tower, away from the ordinary lives of humankind. But they could do any of these things.” He sank down on the bed beside Ellemir, realizing he was more fatigued than after any battle he had fought in the Guards. “One need not be Comyn, or have enormous skill, to do these things. Anyone with a little
 
laran
 
could be trained so, to help, to heal, and no one does!”

“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 thedarkness.

“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,

Page 63

Ellemir was right—smiled, letting himself begin to pick up the formless, random emanations—not yetthoughts—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 onany daughter of mine
 
… Then he suddenly shuddered, in a flick of precognition seeing a slenderred-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, anhallucination, born of his own disquiet? Holding his wife and child in his arms, he tried to put it all asidefor the time.

Chapter Seven

«^»

The frostbitten men were recovering, but with so many men disabled, an extra share of the actualphysical 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 fromthe 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 estatethere, to work for the estate through the winter, and help with the crops in the early spring. The journeywould 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 womenwith their work. Callista was seated beside her father when suddenly she sat upright with a look ofdisquiet. She said, “Oh—Elli, Elli—oh, no—!” But even before she was on her feet Damon’s chaircrashed over backward and he ran toward the kitchens. At that moment there were cries of dismay fromthe other rooms.

Dom
Esteban grumbled, “What’s wrong with those women?” but no one was listening. Callista had runtoward 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. Damonmotioned them away, and Andrew picked up Ellemir. Her pallor was frightening, but Andrew knewnothing 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 closedon 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 washappening. 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’seyes. They were full of tears. She said, “Ellemir is not in danger, Damon. But it’s already too late for thebaby.”

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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 boretheir child, or shrank from sharing her ordeal. And now he must strengthen Ellemir for their loss, not forjoy. Fighting back his own anguished grief, he knelt beside her, holding her in his arms, cradling heragainst him.

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

“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 hisown ill luck had somehow proved contagious, if the trouble of his own marriage had somehow rubbed offon the other couple. Realizing that this was absolute insanity, he went down to the greenhouse and triedto 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 forgottenin 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?”

“Should I be here if she were not?” Damon asked, then, remembering, dropped down on a crate, covered his face with his hands, and gave way to his grief. Andrew stood beside him, his hand on his friend’s shoulder, trying without words to give Damon some support, the knowledge of his own compassion.

“The worst of it is,” Damon said at last, raising his ravaged face, “Elli thinks she has failed me, that she could not carry our daughter safely to life. If there is fault it is mine, who left her to care for this great house alone. Mine in any case! We are too near akin, doubly cousins, and in such close kinship there is often a heritage of death in the blood. I should never have married her! I should never have married her! I love her, I love her, but I knew she wanted children, and I should have known it was not safe, we were such close kin… I do not know if I will dare to let her try again.” Damon finally quieted a little, and stood up, Saying wearily, “I should go back. When she wakes, she will want me beside her.” For the first time since Andrew had known him, he looked his full age.

And he had envied Damon his happiness! Ellemir was young, they could have other children. But withthis weight of guilt?

Page 65

Later he found Callista in the small stone-floored still-room, her hair tied up in the faded cloth she woreto keep away the herb-smells. She raised her face to him and he saw that it still bore the traces of tears. Had she shared that ordeal with her twin? But her voice had the remote calm he had grown to expect in Callista, and somehow it jarred on him now.

“I am making something which will lessen the bleeding; it must be freshly made or it is not so effective, and she must have it every few hours.” She was pounding some thick grayish leaves in a small mortar. She scraped the mash into a cone-shaped glass and set it to filter through layers of closely woven cloth, carefully measuring and pouring a colorless liquid over it.

“There. That must filter before I can do anymore.” She turned to him, raising her eyes. He asked, “But

Elli—she will recover? And she can have other children, in time?”

“Oh, yes, I suppose so.”

He wanted to reach out and take her in his arms, comfort the grief she shared with her twin. But hedared not even touch her hand. Aching with frustration, he turned away.

My wife. And I have never even kissed her. Damon and Ellemir have their shared sorrow; whathave I shared with Callista?

Gently, pitying the grief in her eyes, he said, “Dear love, is it really such a tragedy? It’s not as if she hadlost a real baby. A child ready for birth, yes, but a fetus at this stage? How can it be so serious?”

He was not prepared for the horror and rage with which she turned on him. Her face was white, hereyes blazing like the flame beneath the retort. “How can you say such a thing?” she whispered. “How
dare
 
you? Don’t you know that for twice a tenday, both Damon and Ellemir had been in contactwith—with her mind, had come to know her as a real presence, their own
 
child
 
?” Andrew flinched ather anger. He had never thought of it, that in a family of telepaths, an unborn child would certainly be apresence. But so soon? So quickly? And what kind of thoughts could a fetus hardly more than a third ofthe way through pregnancy—But Callista picked up the scorn in that thought. She flung back at him,shaking, “Will you say, then, it is no tragedy if our son—or daughter—should die before he was strongenough to live outside my body?” Her voice trembled. “Is nothing real that you cannot see,
 
Terranan
 
?”