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There was a confused silence in the hall. A few of the people murmured to one another, but no onespoke aloud, and at last Callista said, “Very well. You may think about it overnight. Tomorrow I will useany methods at my command”—with an automatic, arrogant gesture her hand went to the matrix in itsconcealed place at her throat—“to discover who is guilty. That is all. You may go.”

It was the first time Andrew had seen her deliberately call upon her old authority as Keeper, and ittroubled him. As she came back to her seat he asked, “What is missing, Callista?”

“
 
Kireseth
,” she said briefly. “It is a dangerous herb, and its use is forbidden except to the Tower-trained or under their express authority.” Her smooth brow was wrinkled with a frown. “I do not like the idea of some ignorant person going around crazed with the stuff. It is a deliriant and hallucinogen.”

Dom
Esteban protested, “Oh, come, Callista, surely not so dangerous. I know you people in the Towershave a superstitious taboo about the stuff, but it grows wild here in the hills, and it has never been—”

“Just the same, I am personally responsible for making certain that none of it is mishandled by my

neglect.”

Damon raised his head. He said wearily, “Don’t trouble the servants, Callista,
 
I
took it.”

She stared at him in astonishment. “You, Damon? Whatever did you want with it?”

“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 atroubled look. Her thoughts were easy to read:
 
Damon is trained in the use of
kirian,
 
but he cannot

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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-crystalpawns with surface absorption, but his mind was busy elsewhere. What could Damon have wanted withthe
 
kireseth
 
? Damon had warned him not to handle or smell it, he remembered. Moving a pawn, andlosing it to his father-in-law, it seemed that he could feel Damon’s thoughts leaking around the perimeterof his own emotions. He knew how much Damon hated and feared the matrix work he had been trainedto do, had been forced to renounce, and had returned to against his will.
 
Until Callista is free. Andeven then… There is so much that a telepath can do, so much undone
 
… cutting off-Damon’sthoughts by main force, Andrew forced himself to concentrate on the board before him, lost three pawnsin rapid succession, then made a major mistake in moving which cost him the major piece called thedragon. 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’sbody-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, itwould 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 whohas given back her oath
 
? He knew Damon heard it too, but Damon only said, “Possible, and we willdo that. Thank you, Father.” He bent and embraced the older man. He watched him, frowning a little, ashis servants wheeled him out of the room.

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“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 ownsuite.

“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, braidingher long hair for the night. It reminded Andrew poignantly of another night, but he turned his thoughtsaway. Callista, still preoccupied with Damon, said, “He is more troubled than he wants us to know. Ihave 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 hercheek, but he knew what would happen if he tried it. Then, against his will, Andrew found himselfthinking 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 moonsmove across the sky. When he finally fell asleep he was not aware of it. It was as if he moved into somestate of consciousness between reality and dreams. Damon had told him once that at times, in sleep, themind 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 heknew they would welcome it if he joined them, linked with their joyous rapport and closeness, he keptturning away his eyes and his mind from the sight. He wasn’t a voyeur; he wasn’t that depraved, not yet,not even here.

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After a long time he found the structure they had built for working with the frostbitten men. He wasafraid he would find them there too, as they seemed to be everywhere at once, but Ellemir was sleepingand 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 doyou think I could not explain it to Callista? It is forbidden. Everything is forbidden. We should not be hereat all.”

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 goto 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 andenclosed him. Then Callista—or was it Ellemir? He could no longer be sure anymore, which of them washis wife—came to him, with a bunch of the
 
kireseth
 
flowers in her hand, and said, “Take them. Ourchildren 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’sbreasts, 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 thecollapsing walls Leonie was cursing them, and obscurely Andrew knew that it was all his fault because hehad taken Callista away from her.

And then he was alone on the gray plain, and the landmark was very far away on the horizon. Althoughhe 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, astranger, never to be part of them again. As soon as he drew near the grayness expanded, elastic, and hewas far away and the structure was on the far horizon again. And yet somehow at the same time he wasinside his walls, and Callista was lying in his arms—or was it Ellemir, or somehow was he making love tothem both at once?— and it was Damon who was wandering outside on the horizon, struggling to comenear to the landmark, and never reaching it, never, never… He said to Ellemir, “You must take him someof 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 wasoutside, 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 hadmeant, knew the words were part of Damon’s dream. Then he slept again, wandering in the gray andformless realms until dawn. Partly aware that it was not his own consciousness at all, he wondered if hewere 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 awarning, you could be guided by it. But it was just time out of focus, and even Leonie did not understandtime. And Andrew in his own awareness wished Damon would keep his damned troubling dreams tohimself.

It was a cold, bitter morning, with sleet falling. Damon felt that the sky reflected his own mood.

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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 taboomight, after the Ages of Chaos, have made some sense. But now he felt, with every nerve in him, that itwas 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 hisfather-in-law. He knew that for many a younger son, without an estate of his own, this would have been aperfect solution: landless himself, to have an estate where his sons would share in the heritage. But it wasnot for Damon. He knew that any halfway skilled steward could do his work as well. He was theresimply to assure that no unscrupulous paid employee took advantage of his wife’s father.