Leonie had told him that he was too sensitive, too vulnerable, that if he went on, it would destroy him.
She also said that if he had been a woman, he would have made a good Keeper.
He told himself firmly that he hadn’t believed it then and that he refused to believe it now. Any good matrix mechanic could handle a Keeper’s work, he reminded himself. He felt a chill of dread at doing this work outside the safe confines of a Tower.
But here was where it was needed, and here was where it must be done. Perhaps there was more need for matrix mechanics outside a Tower than within… Damon realized where his random thoughts were taking him, and shuddered at the blasphemy. The Towers — Arilinn, Hali, Neskaya, Dalereuth, the others scattered about the Domains — were the way in which the ancient matrix sciences of Darkover had been made safe after the terrible abuses of the Ages of Chaos. Under the safe supervision of the Keepers — oath-bound, secluded, virgin, passionless, excluded from the political and personal stresses of the Comyn — every matrix worker was trained carefully and tested for trustworthiness, every matrix monitored and guarded against misuse.
And when a matrix was used illegally, outside a Tower and without their leave, then such things happened as when the Great Cat cast darkness through the Kilghard Hills, madness, destruction, death…
He let his fingers stray to his own matrix. He had used it, outside a Tower, to destroy the Great Cat and cleanse the Hills of their terror. That had not been misuse. And this healing he was about to do, this was not misuse; it was legitimate, sanctioned. He was a trained matrix worker, yet he felt queasy and ill at ease.
At last all the men, slightly or seriously hurt, had been salved, bandaged, fed, and put to bed in the back halls. The worst ones had been dosed with Ferrika’s pain-killing potions, and Ferrika, with some of her women, stayed to watch over them. But Damon knew that while many of the men would recover, with no more treatment than good nursing and healing oils, there were a few who would not.
A noonday hush had settled over Armida. Ferrika watched over the hurt men; Ellemir came to play cards with her father, and at Dom Esteban’s request, Callista brought her harp, laid it across her lap and began tuning the strings. Damon, watching her closely, saw that while she seemed calm, her eyes were still red, and her fingers less steady than usual as she struck the first few chords.
What sound was that upon the moor?
Hear, O hear!
What sound was that in the darkness here?
It was the wind that rattled the door,
Child, do not fear.
Was that the noise of a horseman’s hoof,
Hear, O hear!
Was it the sound of a rider near!
It was but branches, astrike on the roof,
Child, do not fear!
Was that a face at the window there?
Hear, O hear! A strange dark face…
Damon rose silently, beckoned to Dezi to follow him. As they withdrew into the corridor, he said, “Dezi, I know perfectly well that one never asks why someone left a Tower, but would you care to tell me, in complete confidence, why you left Arilinn?”
Dezi’s face was sullen. “No, I wouldn’t. Why should I?”
“Because I need your help. You saw the state those men were in, you know that with nothing more than hot water and herb-salves, there are at least four of them who will never walk again, and Raimon, at least, will die. So you know what I am going to have to do.”
Dezi nodded, and Damon went on: “You know I will need someone to monitor for me. And if you were dismissed for incompetence, you know I could not dare use you.”
There was a long silence. Dezi stared at the slate-colored slabs of the floor, and inside the Great Hall they heard the sound of the harp, and Callista singing:
Why lies my father upon the ground?
Hear, O hear!
Stricken to death with a foeman’s spear…
“It was not incompetence,” Dezi said at last. “I am not sure why they decided I must go.” He sounded sincere, and Damon, enough of a telepath to know when he was being lied to, decided he probably was sincere. “I can only think that they didn’t like me. Or perhaps” — he raised his eyes, with an angry steel glint in them — “they knew I was not even an acknowledged nedestro, not good enough for their precious Arilinn, where blood and lineage are everything.”
Damon thought that no, the Towers didn’t work that way. But he was not so sure. Arilinn was not the oldest of the Towers, but it was the proudest, claiming more than nine hundred generations of pure Comyn blood, claiming too that the first Keeper had been a daughter of Hastur’s self. Damon didn’t believe it, for there was too little history which had survived the Ages of Chaos.
“Oh, come, Dezi, if you could pass the Veil they would know you were Comyn, or of Comyn blood, and I don’t think they would care that much.” But he knew nothing he said could get past the boy’s wounded vanity. And vanity was a dangerous flaw for a matrix mechanic.
The Tower circles depended so much on the character of the Keeper. Leonie was a proud woman. She was when Damon knew her, with all the arrogance of a Hastur, and she had grown no less so in the years between. Perhaps she was personally intolerant of Dezi’s lack of proper pedigree. Or perhaps he was right, and they simply didn’t like him… In any case, it made no difference here. Damon had no choice. Andrew was a powerful telepath, but essentially untrained. Dezi, if he had lasted even half a year in a Tower, would have had meticulous training in the elemental mechanics of the art.
“Can you monitor?”
Dezi said, “Try me.”
Damon shrugged. “Try, then.”
In the hall, Callista’s voice rose mournfully:
What was that cry that rent the air?
Hear, O hear!
What dreadful shriek of dark despair,
A widow’s curse and an orphan’s prayer…
“Zandru’s hells,” Dom Esteban exploded, at the top of his voice, “why such a doleful song, Callista? Weeping and mourning, death and despair. We are not at a funeral! Sing something more cheerful, girl!”
There was a brief harsh sound, as if Callista’s hands had struck a dissonance on the harp. She said, and her voice faltered, “I fear I am not much in the mood for singing, Father. I beg you to excuse me.”
Damon felt the touch on his mind, swift and expert, so perfectly shielded that if Damon had not been watching Dezi, he would not have known by whom he had been touched. He felt the faint, deep probing, then Dezi said, “You have a crooked back tooth. Does it bother you?”
“Not since I was a boy,” Damon said. “Deeper?”
Dezi’s face went blank, with a glassy stare. After a moment he said, “Your ankle — the left ankle — was broken in two places when you were quite young. It must have taken a long time to heal; there are scars where bone fragments must have worked out for some time afterward. There is a fine crack in your third — no, the fourth — rib from the breastbone. You thought it was only a bruise and did not tell Ferrika when you returned from the wars with the catmen last season, but you were right, it was broken. There is a small scar — vertical, about four inches long — along your calf. It was made by a sharp instrument, but I do not know whether knife or sword. Last night you dreamed—”
Damon nodded, laughing. “Enough,” he said, “you can monitor.” How in the name of Aldones had they been willing to let Dezi go? This was a telepath of surpassing skill. With three years of Arilinn training, he would have matched the best in the Domains! Dezi picked up the thought and smiled, and again Damon had the moment of disquiet. Not lack of competence, or lack of confidence. Was it his vanity, then?
Or had it been only some personality clash, someone there who felt unable or unwilling to work with the youngster? The Tower circles were so intimate, a closer bond than lovers or kinfolk, that the slightest emotional dissonance could be exaggerated into torture. Damon knew that Dezi’s personality could be abrasive — he was young, touchy, easily offended — so perhaps he had simply come at the wrong time, into a group already so intimate that they could not adapt to any outsider, and not enough in need of another worker that they would work hard enough at the necessary personal adjustments.