Allart was ice-cold, cramped, but he did not know it; he was unaware of his body, unaware of anything except the pouring streams, the flow of energy which rushed through him. Dimly, without thought, it reminded him of the ecstatic union of minds and voices of the morning hymns of Nevarsin, this sense of unique blending and separateness, of having found his own place in the music of the universe…
Outside the circle of linked hands and minds, a white-robed woman sat, her face in her hands, nothing visible but the falling streams of her long copper-colored hair. Her mind moved ceaselessly around and around the circle, monitoring one after another of the motionless figures. She eased the tension of a muscle before it could impair concentration, soothed a sudden cramp or itch before it could intrude into the concentration of the man or woman in the circle; made certain breathing did not falter, nor any of the small automatic movements which kept the neglected bodies in good order—the rhythmic blinks of the eyes to avoid strain, the faint shift of position. If breathing faltered, she went into rapport with the breather and starting the smooth rhythm again, lending smooth pace to a faltering heart. The linked members of the circle were not conscious of their own bodies, had not been conscious of them for hours. They were aware only of their linked minds, floating in the blazing energies they poured into the batteries. Time had stopped for them in an endless instant of massive union; only the monitor was conscious of the passing hours. Now, not seeing but sensing that the hour of sunrise was still some time away, she was aware of some tension in the circle that should not be there, and sent her questing mind from one to another of the linked figures.
Coryn. The Keeper himself, trained for years in mind and body to endure just this strain… no, he was in no distress. He was cramped, and she checked his circulation; he was cold but was not yet aware of it. His condition had not altered since the early hours of the night. Once his body was linked and locked into one of the comfortably balanced postures he could maintain unmoving for hours, it was well with him.
Mira? No, the old woman who had been monitor before Renata herself was calm and unaware, floating peacefully in the energy nets, focused on the outflows of force, random dreaming, blissful.
Barak? The sturdy, swarthy man, the technician who had built the artificial matrix lattice to the requirements of this circle, was cramped. Automatically Renata descended into his body-awareness, eased a muscle before pain could intrude into his concentration. Nothing else was amiss with him.
Allart? How had a newcomer to the circle come to have such control? Had it been his Nevarsin training? His breathing was deep and slow, unfaltering, the flow of oxygen to his limbs and heart unceasing. He had even learned the most difficult trick of a matrix circle, the long hours unmoving, without undue pain or cramping.
Arielle? She was the youngest of the circle in years, yet at sixteen she had spent a full two years here in Hali, and had achieved the rank of mechanic. Renata checked her carefully: breathing, heart, the sinuses which sometimes gave Arielle trouble because of the dampness here in the lake country. Arielle was from the southern plains. Finding nothing amiss, Renata checked further. No, nothing wrong, not even a full bladder to cause tension. Renata thought, I wondered if Coryn had made her pregnant, but it is not that. I checked her carefully before she entered the circle, and Arielle knows better than that…
It must be the other newcomer, then, Cassandra… Carefully monitoring, she checked heart, breathing, circulation. Cassandra was cramped, but not in much pain from it, not enough to notice. Renata felt Cassandra’s awareness, a random troubled flutter, and sent a quick, reassuring thought to calm her before it could disturb the others. Cassandra was new to this work, and had not yet come to take the routine intrusion of a monitor’s touch on body and mind with complete acceptance. It took Renata some seconds to soothe Cassandra before she could go into the deeper internal monitoring.
Yes, it is Cassandra. It is her strain we are all sharing… She should not have come into the circle at this time, with her woman’s cycles about to come upon her. I thought she knew better than that… But Renata never thought of blaming Cassandra, only herself. I should have made certain of that. Renata knew how hard it was, in the early days of learning, to confess weakness or admit to limitations.
She moved into rapport with Cassandra, trying to calm her tension, but she realized Cassandra was not yet able to work with her in that kind of total closeness. She sent a careful, warning thought to Coryn, a gentle touch akin to the softest of murmurs.
We must break soon… be ready when I signal to you.
The flow of energies did not pause or falter, but the barest outside flutter of Coryn’s attention replied, Not yet; there is still an entire row of batteries which must be charged, then he sank back into the linkage of the circle without a ripple.
Now Renata was troubled. The word of the Keeper was law in the circle; yet it was the responsibility of the monitor to keep custody of the well-being of the bodies of the linked members. So far she had carefully shielded her thoughts and her concern from all of them, but from somewhere she felt, now, a faint awareness, a withdrawal of total energy from the circle, which should not have been there. Allart is aware of Cassandra. He is too aware of her for this stage. He should not, linked into the circle like this, know she is alive, any more than another. As yet it was only a flicker and she compensated by gently nudging Allart’s awareness back to his own focus of energy. She tried to hold Cassandra steady, as if, on a steep stairway, she had lent the other woman the support of her arm. But once the intensity of concentration was broken, something in the stream of energies faltered, wavered, as a wind ruffles the face of the waters. One by one she felt the disturbance run around the circle, only a flicker, but at this high level of concentration, disrupting. Barak shifted his weight uneasily. Coryn coughed, Arielle snuffled, and Renata felt Cassandra’s breathing falter, grow heavy. Now imperative, she sent out a second warning:
We must break, Coryn. It is near time….
This time the backlash was definitely irritable, and it reverberated through all the linked minds like an alarm bell. Allart heard the sound in his mind as he had heard the soundless bells of Nevarsin, and began slowly to recover his independent focus. Coryn’s irritation was like a stinging slap; he felt it like the twitching of some internal strand as he felt Cassandra’s consciousness drop away. It was like plucking forth an ingrown strand, as if some deep root planted in his being was jerked forth all bloody. One by one he felt the circle break and disintegrate, not the gentle withdrawal it had been in the earlier times, but this time falling apart painfully. He heard Mira gasping with effort, Arielle sniffle as if she were going to cry. Barak groaned, stretching a painfully cramped limb. Allart knew enough not to move too quickly at first; he moved with the slowest, most careful of motions, as if coming awake from a very deep sleep. But he was troubled and distressed. What had happened to the circle? Certainly their work had not been completed…
One by one, around the table, the others were coming up from the depths of the matrix trance. Coryn looked white and shattered. He did not speak, but the intensity of his anger, directed at Renata, was painful to them all.
I told you, not yet. Now we will have this all to do again, for less than a dozen batteries… Why did you break just now? Was there anyone in this circle too weak to endure for just a little more? Are we children playing jackstones, or a responsible mechanics’ circle?
But Renata paid no attention, and Allart, his conscious mind flicking back into focus, saw that Cassandra had fallen sideways, her long dark hair scattered along the tabletop. He shoved back his low chair and sprang to her side, but Renata was there before him.
“No,” she said, and with a flicker of dismay, Allart heard the commanding voice focused against him. “Don’t touch her! This is my responsibility!” In his extreme sensitization Allart picked up the thought Renata had not spoken aloud: You have done too much already; you are responsible for this…
I? Holy Bearer
of Burdens, strengthen me! I, Renata?
Renata was kneeling beside Cassandra, her fingertips spread at the back of Cassandra’s neck, just touching her at the nerve center there. Cassandra stirred, and Renata said soothingly, “It’s all right, love; you’re all right now.”
Cassandra murmured, “I’m so cold, so cold.”
“I know, it will pass in a few minutes.”
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean—I was sure—” Cassandra looked around, dazed, at the edge of tears. She flinched before Coryn’s angry glare.
“Let her alone, Coryn. It’s not her fault,” Renata said, not looking up.
Coryn said, with a gesture of deep irony, “Z’par servu, vai leronis… Have we your leave to test the batteries? While you minister to our bride?”
Cassandra was struggling against sobs. Renata said, “Don’t mind Coryn; he is as tired as we all are. He didn’t mean that as it sounded.”
Arielle went to a side table, took up a metal tool—the matrix circles had first call on all the scarce metals of Darkover—and, wrapping her hand in insulating material, went to the batteries, touching them one after another to elicit the spark indicating they were fully charged. The other members of the circle rose cautiously, stretching cramped bodies. Renata still knelt at Cassandra’s side; finally she withdrew her hands from the pulse circuits at the other woman’s throat.
“Try to stand up now. Move around if you can.”
Cassandra chafed her thin hands together. “I am as cold as if I had spent the night in Zandru’s coldest hell. Thank you, Renata. How did you know?”
“I am a monitor. It is my duty to know such things.” Renata Leynier was a slight, tawny young woman, with masses of copper-gold hair, but her mouth was too wide for beauty, her teeth somewhat crooked, her nose splotched with freckles. Her eyes, though, were wide and gray and beautiful.
“When you have had a little more training, Cassandra, you will be able to sense them for yourself, and tell us when you are not well enough to join a circle. At such a time, as I thought you knew, your psychic energy leaves your body with your blood, and you need all your strength for yourself. Now you must go to bed and rest for a day or two. Certainly you must not work in the circle again, or do any work demanding so much effort and concentration.”
Allart came toward them, troubled. “Are you ill, Cassandra?”
Renata answered for her. “Overwearied, no more, and in need of food and rest.” Mira had gone to a cupboard at the far end of the room and was setting out some of the food and wine kept there so that the circle members could refresh themselves at once from the tremendous energy-drains of their work. Renata went and searched among the provisions for a long bar of compressed nuts, sticky with honey. She put it into Cassandra’s hand, but the dark-haired woman shook her head.
“I do not like sweets. I will wait for a proper breakfast.”
“Eat it,” Renata said, in command voice. “You need the strength.”
Cassandra broke off a piece of the sticky confection and put it unto her mouth. She grimaced at the cloying taste, but chewed it obediently. Arielle joined them, and throwing down the tool and taking a handful of dried fruits, she put them greedily into her mouth. When she could speak plain she said, “The last full dozen of the batteries are not charged, and the last three we finished will have to be done again; they are not to full capacity.”
“What a nuisance!” Coryn glared at Cassandra.
“Let her alone!” Renata insisted. “We have all been beginners!”
Coryn poured himself some wine and sipped it. “I am sorry, kinswoman,” he said at last, smiling at Cassandra, his normal good nature taking over again. “Are you wearied, cousin? You must not exhaust yourself for a few batteries.”
Arielle wiped her fingers, sticky with the honeyed fruit. “If there is any work more tedious from Dalereuth to the Hellers than charging batteries, I cannot imagine it.”
“Better that than mining,” Coryn said. “Whenever I work with metals, I come out exhausted for half a moon. I am glad there is no more work to be done this year. Every time we go into the earth for mining, I come back to consciousness feeling as if I had lifted every spoonful of it with my own two hands!”
Allart, disciplined by the years of arduous physical and mental training at Nevarsin, was less weary than the others, but his muscles were aching with tension and inactivity. He saw Cassandra break another piece of the sticky honey-nut confection, felt her grimace as she put it into her mouth. They were still in rapport and he felt her revulsion for the oversweet stuff as if he were eating it himself.
“Don’t eat that if you don’t like it. Surely on the shelves there is something more to your liking,” he said, and turned to rummage in them.
Cassandra shrugged. “Renata said this would restore me more quickly than anything else. I don’t mind.”
Allart took a piece of it himself. Barak, who had been sipping a cup of wine, finished it and came toward them.
“Are you recovered, kinswoman? The work is indeed fatiguing when you are new to it, and there are no suitable restoratives here.” He laughed aloud. “Perhaps you should have a spoonful or so of kireseth honey; it is the best of all restoratives after long weariness, and you especially should—” Abruptly he coughed and turned away, pretending he had choked on the last swallow in his glass, but they all heard the words in his mind as if he had spoken them aloud. You especially should take such restoratives, since you are so new-made a bride and have more need of them… but before the words had escaped his tongue, Barak had recalled what indeed they all knew, having been in close telepathic rapport with Allart and Cassandra: the real state of affairs between them.
The only amend he could make for the tactless jest was to turn away, pretend the words unthought as they had been unspoken. There was a brief silence in the matrix chamber and then they all began talking very loudly and all at once about something else. Coryn took up the metal tool and checked a couple of the batteries himself. Mira rubbed her cold hands and said she was ready for a hot bath and a massage.
Renata put an arm around Cassandra’s waist.
“You, too, sweetheart. You are cold and cramped. Go down now; send for some proper breakfast and have a hot bath. I will send my own bath-woman; she is extra skilled at massage, and can loosen those tight muscles and nerves of yours so you can sleep. Don’t feel guilty. All of us overworked in our first season here. No one likes to admit weakness, and we have all done it. When you have had some hot food and a bath and massage, then lie down and sleep. Have her put hot bricks at your feet and cover you well.”
Cassandra demurred. “I do not like to deprive you of her services.”
“Chiya, I do not let myself get into such a state anymore. Go now. Tell Lucetta I said to tend you as she does me when I am out of the circle. Do as you are told, cousin. This is my business, to know what you need even when you do not know it yourself,” she said. Allart thought she sounded motherly, as if she were a generation Cassandra’s senior, instead of a girl Cassandra’s own age or less.
“I will go down, too,” Mira said. Coryn drew Arielle’s hand through his arm and they left together. Allart was about to follow when Renata laid a feather-light hand on his arm.
“Allart, if you are not too weary, I would like a word with you.”
Allart had been thinking of his luxurious room on a lower floor, and a cool bath, but he was not really weary; he said so, and Renata nodded.
“If this is the training of the Nevarsin brethren, perhaps we should acquire it for our circles. You are as steady and unwearied as Barak, and he has been part of our circles almost as long as I have been alive. You should teach us something of your secrets! Or do the brethren pledge you to secrecy?”
Allart shook his head. “It is only a discipline of breathing.”
“Come. Shall we walk outdoors in the sunshine?” Together they went down to the ground level, stepped through the force-field which protected the Tower circle against in
trusion when they were working, and went into the growing brilliance of the morning. Allart walked silently beside Renata. He was not unduly tired, but he was tense and sleepless, his nerves jangling. As always when he relaxed his barriers even a little, his laran wove conflicting futures around him, diverging but just as perceptible as the green lawns sloping away toward the lake and the cloudy shores of Hali.
Silent, they walked side by side along the shore. Liriel, the violet moon, just past full, was setting dimly over the lake. Green Idriel, the palest of crescents, hung high and pale over the faraway rim of mountains.
Allart knew—he had known when first he set eyes on Renata—that this was the other of the two women he had seen again and again, and again, in the diverging futures of his life. From that first day in the Tower he had been on guard against her, speaking no more than the barest courtesies, avoiding her as much as it was possible to avoid anyone in the close quarters of the Tower. He had come to respect her competence as a monitor, to value her quick laughter and good humor, and this morning, watching her ministering to Cassandra’s collapse, he had been touched by her kindness.
But until this moment they had never exchanged a single word outside the line of their duties in the circle.
Now hampered by fatigue he saw Renata’s face, not as it was—gentle, impersonal, withdrawn, the look of a Tower-trained monitor at work, speaking of professional things—but as it might be in any of the diverging, fanning futures which might come to pass. Although he had barricaded himself against it, never allowing such thoughts freedom, he had seen her warmed by love, known the tenderness she could summon, had possessed her as if in a dream. This, overlaid upon the real state of affairs between them, confused and embarrassed him, as if he must face a woman about whom he had dreamed erotically, and conceal it from her. No. No woman had any part in his life except Cassandra, and he had firmly resolved how limited that part should be. He steeled himself against any lowering of these barriers and looked on Renata with the cold, impersonal gaze, almost hostile, of the Nevarsin monk.