The Spell Sword (19 page)

I'm not even supposed to think about a Keeper. They're sacrosanct. Untouchable.

She raised her shadowy fingers to lay them gently against his cheek. She said
very gently, "There will be time enough to think about all that later, when I am
with you-really with you, really close to you."

"Callista. You know I love you," he said hesitantly, and her mouth trembled.

"I know, and it is strange to me, and I suppose under any other conditions it
would be frightening to me. But you have come to me when I was so terribly
alone, and fearing death, or torment, or ravishment. Men have desired me
before," she said very simply, "and of course I have been taught, in ways I
couldn't even begin to explain to you, not to respond to them in any way, even
in fancy. With some men, it has made me feel-feel sick, as if insects were
crawling on my body. But there have been a few that I have almost wished-wished,
as I wish now with you-that I knew how to respond to their desire; even,
perhaps, that I knew how to desire them in return. Can you understand this at
all?"

"Not really," Andrew said slowly, "but I'll try to understand what you're
feeling. I can't help how I feel, Callista, but I'll try not to feel anything
you don't want me to." To a telepath girl, he was thinking, a lustful thought
must have some of the quality of a rape. Was that why it was rude to look at a
young woman here? To protect them against one's thoughts?

"But I want you to," Callista said shyly. "I'm not sure what it would feel like
to-to love anyone. But I want you to go on thinking about me. It makes me feel
less lonely somehow. Alone in the dark, I feel as if I am not real, even to
myself."

Andrew felt an infinite tenderness. Poor child; brainwashed and conditioned
against any emotion, what had they made of her? If only he could do something,
anything to comfort her. He felt so damned helpless, miles and miles away from
her, and Callista alone in the dark and frightened. He whispered to her, "Keep
up your courage, my darling. We'll have you out of there soon," and as the words
escaped him he found himself back in his body, lying on the bed, feeling sick
and faint and somehow drained. But at least he knew Callista was alive, and
well-as well as she could possibly be, he amended-until Damon got her out of
there.

He lay quiet for a moment, resting. Evidently telepathic work was a lot more
strenuous than physical activity; he felt about like he had when he'd been
fighting his way through the buzzard.

Fighting. But Damon was doing the real fighting. Somewhere out there, Damon had
the really serious task, fighting his way through the cat-men-and from what he'd
seen downstairs, when Dom Esteban's party had dragged themselves home, wounded
and broken, the cat-men were damned formidable antagonists.

Damon had told him that it was for him to lead them to Callista, once Damon was
inside the caves. He supposed he could do that, now that he knew how to step
outside his body-what Callista had first called his "solid" body- and into the
overworld. Then a frightening thought struck him.

Callista was in some level of the overworld where she could not reach, or even
see, Damon, or Ellemir, or any of her friends. He, Carr, could reach her,
somehow; but did that mean that he was on her part of the overworld, the only
one the cat-men had left open to Callista? If that was true, then he couldn't
reach Damon either! And how in hell-in that case-could he lead Damon anywhere?

Once the thought had come into his mind it would not be dispelled. Could he
reach Damon? Even through the starstone? Or would he find himself, like
Callista, wandering like a ghost in the overworld, unable to reach any familiar
human face?

Nonsense. Damon knew what he was doing. They had been in contact, last night,
through the stones. (Again the memory of that curiously intimate moment of
fusion warmed and disturbed him.)
Just the same. the doubt lingered, would not be chased away. Finally he realized
there was only one way to be sure, and once again he drew forth the starstone
from its silk envelope. This time, he did not attempt to physically move out of
his body into the overworld, but concentrated, with all his strength, on Damon,
repeating his name.

The stone clouded. Again the curious creeping sickness (Would he ever get past
that stage? Would he ever be free of it?) surged up and he struggled for
control, trying to focus his thoughts on Damon. Deep in the depths of the blue
stone-as he had seen Callista's face, so long ago now in the Trade City-he saw
tiny figures, like riders, and he knew that he saw Damon's party, the swirling
cloak of green-gold, which Damon had told him were the colors of the Ridenow
family, the two tall riders on either side. Over them, like a menace, hovered a
dark cloud, a dimness, and a voice, not his own, whispered in Andrew's thoughts:
The edge of the darkening lands. Then there was a curious flare and touch, and
Andrew felt himself merging with another mind-he was Damon.

Damon's body sat his horse with careless, automatic skill; no one who did not
know him well would have realized that his body was empty of consciousness, that
Damon himself rode somewhere above, his mind sweeping over the land before him,
seeking, seeking.

The shadow rose before him, a thick darkness to his mind as it had been to his
eyes, and again he felt the memory of fear, the apprehension which he had felt
on leading his men into ambush, unawares. Is this fear for now, or a memory of
that fear? Briefly, dropping back into his body, he felt Dom Esteban's sword,
which lay loosely held in his right hand, twitch slightly, and knew he must
control himself and react only to real dangers. It was Dom Esteban's sword,
rather than Damon's own, because, as Dom Esteban put it, "I have carried it in a
hundred battles. No other sword would come so ready to my hand. It knows my ways
and my will." Damon had carried out the old man's wishes, remembering how the
silver butterfly Callista wore in her hair carried the mental imprint of her
personality. How much more, then, a sword on which Dom Esteban had depended for
his very life, for over fifty years spent in battles, feuds, raiding parties?

In the hilt of the sword, Damon had set one of the small, unkeyed first-level
matrixes which he had dismissed, at first, as being only fit to fasten buttons;
small as it was, it would resonate in harmony with his own starstone and allow
Dom Esteban to maintain contact not only with the energy-nets of his muscles and
nerve centers, but with the hilt of his sword.

Spell sword, he thought, half derisively. But the history of Darkover was full
of such weapons. There was the legendary Sword of Aldones in the chapel at Hali,
a weapon so ancient-and so fearful-that no one alive knew how to wield it. There
was the Sword of Hastur, in Castle Hastur, of which it was said that if any man
drew it save in defense of the honor of the Hasturs it would blast his hand as
if with fire. And that in turn reminded him of the Lady Mirella, whose body and
hands had been burned and blackened as if with fire.

His hand trembled faintly on the hilt of Dom Esteban's sword. Well, he was as
well prepared for such a battle as any living man could be; Tower-trained,
strong enough that Leonie had said that as a woman he would have been a Keeper.

And as for the rest-well, he was riding in defense of his own kinswoman, taking
up a duty for his father-in-law-to-be, and thus safeguarding the honor of his
future wife's family.

And as for being a virgin, Damon thought wryly, I'm not, but I'm as nearly
chaste as any adult male my age could be. I didn't even bed Ellemir, although
Evanda the Fair knows that I would have liked to. To himself he recited the
Creed of Chastity taught him at Nevarsin Monastery, where he had been schooled,
like many sons of the Seven Domains, in childhood. The creed was adhered to by
men working in the Tower Circles: never to lay hands on any unwilling woman, to
look never with lewd thoughts on child or pledged virgin, to spend oneself never
on such women as are common to all.

Well, I learned it so thoroughly in the Tower that I never unlearned it, and if
it makes it safer for me on what is, basically, work for a Keeper-well, so much
the better for me and so much the worse for the cat-men, Zandru seize them for
his coldest hell!

He dropped back into his body, opened his eyes, and watched the land ahead of
him. Then, carefully and slowly, he raised his consciousness again, leaving his
body to react with long habit to the motion of the horse. He used the link of
those open, staring eyes to send himself out over the physical landscape ahead,
still brooding beneath that dark mist.

It was as darker clots of blackness just at the edge of that shadow that he saw
them first; then the fine web of force that bound them to some other power,
hidden in a depth of shadow that neither his eyes nor the power of the starstone
could yet pierce.

Then he could see the furred bodies that those forces hid, crouched silent and
motionless among little shrubs which could hardly have hidden them, visible.

Cats. Stalking mice. And we're the mice. He could see his own little group of
men, moving steadily toward that ambush. He began to lower himself toward his
body again. Change their route. Avoid that ambush.

But no. He blinked, staring between his horse's ears, realizing that the
prowling cat-men would, doubtless, follow after them; and if another ambush lay
ahead, they would be trapped between the two parties. He contented himself with
turning his head to Eduin and warning, tersely, "Cat-men ahead. Better be
ready."

Then he willed out of his body once more, focused deep on the starstone, and was
again floating above the cat-men, studying the tenuous nets of force that hid
their bodies from his physical eyes, noting the way those strands fanned out
from the shadow. Just where and when could those webs be broken?

He saw it, reflected in the tension of the cat-bodies which he could see clearly
in the overworld, when he and his men came into view. He saw them drawing short,
curved swords-like claws. And still he waited till the crouching cat-men came up
to their feet and began to run quietly and swiftly over the snow, noiseless on
their soft pads. Then he drew deep into the starstone and hurled a sudden blast
of energy like a lightning bolt, focused on the carefully spun net of energies,
ripping it apart.

Then he was back in his body as the cat-men, not yet realizing that their
magical invisibility was gone, came running toward them over the snow. But
before he regained full control of his body, his horse reared and screamed in
terror, and Damon, reacting a split second too late to the horse's movement,
slid off into the snow. He saw one of the cat-men bounding toward him, and felt
a tightening surge of something-not quite fear-as he fumbled his hand into the
basket-hilt of Dom Esteban's sword.

. Miles away, in the Great Hall at Armida, Dom Es-teban Lanart stirred in his
sleep. His shoulders twitched, and his thin lips curled back in a smile-or a
snarl-that had been seen on countless battlefields.

Damon found himself rolling to his feet, his hand whipping the sword from its
sheath in a long slash. His point ripped through the white-furred belly and
there was blood on the blade outstretched beyond, the blade that was already
pointed at a second cat-man.

As that one slashed at his middle, he saw and felt his wrist turn slightly to
move his point down, into the path of the cut; as steel rang, he felt his leg
jerk in a little kick step, and suddenly his point was buried in the furred
throat.

He caught a brief glimpse of Eduin and Rannan, superb horsemen like all the men
of the Alton Domain, whirling their frightened horses, slashing down at the
gray-furred bodies surrounding them. One went down under a kick from Rannan's
horse, but he had no more time to spare for them; wide green eyes glared at him,
and a mouth of needlelike fangs opened in a menacing hiss. Tufts of black fur
twitched atop the wide ears as the creature whipped its blade around to knock
his point aside, and spun on, the scythe-blade flashing toward his eyes. Damon
felt a spasm of terror, but his own blade had already whirled at the head; the
two swords clashed and he saw a spark leap in the cold. The snarling cat-face
lurched forward at him, and for a second he was fighting empty air.

It flickered in and out of visibility; whatever power lurked behind the dark
edge of shadow was trying to hide its minions again. Stark terror and despair
clawed at him for a moment, so painfully that be half wondered if he had been
wounded. Then, with a deep breath, he realized what he had to do, and focused on
the starstone. As he abandoned his body wholly to Esteban's skill, he prayed
momentarily that the link would hold. Then he forgot his body (either it was
safe with Esteban or it wasn't, either way he couldn't help much) and hurled
himself upward into the overworld.

The shadow lay blank and terrible before him, and from it questing tendrils were
weaving, seeking, to cloak the angry red shadows of the cat-things that fought
there.

He reached blindly into the energy-nets and found that without conscious thought
he had brought a blade of pure force into his hand. He brought it down on the
fine shadow-stuff and the half-woven net of darkness shriveled and burned away.

Severed tendrils, quivering, recoiled into the shadow, and their ends faded and
vanished. The shadow swirled and eddied, drew back, and out of the midst of the
darkness a great cat-face glared at him.

He raised his glowing blade and stood fronting that great menace. Somewhere near
his feet he was dimly aware of tiny forms fighting below him, four cats tinier
than kittens, three little men, and one of those men. surely it was Dom Esteban,
surely that was his sidestep, his twirling disengage. ?

The dark mist swirled again, veiling the great cat, and now only the glowing
eyes and the fierce evil grin stared at him, and somewhere in the back of his
mind, a lunatic whisper in Damon's voice muttered half aloud, "I've often seen a
cat without a grin, but a grin without a cat. ?" and Damon in split second
wondered if he were going mad.