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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 goodmatrix mechanic could handle a Keeper’s work, he reminded himself. He felt a chill of dread at doing thiswork outside the safe confines of a Tower.

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But here was where it was needed, and here was where it must be done. Perhaps there was more needfor matrix mechanics outside a Tower than within… Damon realized where his random thoughts weretaking him, and shuddered at the blasphemy. The Towers—Arilinn, Hali, Neskaya, Dalereuth, the othersscattered about the Domains—were the way in which the ancient matrix sciences of Darkover had beenmade 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 ofthe Comyn—every matrix worker was trained carefully and tested for trustworthiness, every matrixmonitored and guarded against misuse.

And when a matrix was used illegally, outside a Tower and without their leave, then such thingshappened 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 andcleanse the Hills of their terror.
 
That
 
had not been misuse. And this healing he was about to do,
 
this
 
wasnot 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 backhalls. The worst ones had been dosed with Ferrika’s pain-killing potions, and Ferrika, with some of herwomen, stayed to watch over them. But Damon knew that while many of the men would recover, withno 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 playcards with her father, and at
 
Dom
 
Esteban’s request, Callista brought her harp, laid it across her lap andbegan tuning the strings. Damon, watching her closely, saw that while she seemed calm, her eyes werestill 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?

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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, incomplete 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 weredismissed 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 Hallthey 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 theoldest 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’tbelieve 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. Shewas when Damon knew her, with all the arrogance of a Hastur, and she had grown no less so in theyears between. Perhaps she was personally intolerant of Dezi’s lack of proper pedigree. Or perhaps hewas right, and they simply didn’t like him… In any case, it made no difference here. Damon had nochoice. Andrew was a powerful telepath, but essentially untrained. Dezi, if he had lasted even half a yearin 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.”

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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, andher 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 beenwatching 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—wasbroken in two places when you were quite young. It must have taken a long time to heal; there are scarswhere bone fragments must have worked out for some time afterward. There is a fine crack in yourthird—no, the fourth—rib from the breastbone. You thought it was only a bruise and did not tell Ferrikawhen you returned from the wars with the catmen last season, but you were right, it was broken. There isa small scar—vertical, about four inches long—along your calf. It was made by a sharp instrument, but Ido 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 theybeen willing to let Dezi go? This was a telepath of surpassing skill. With three years of Arilinn training, hewould have matched the best in the Domains! Dezi picked up the thought and smiled, and again Damonhad 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 theyoungster? The Tower circles were so intimate, a closer bond than lovers or kinfolk, that the slightestemotional dissonance could be exaggerated into torture. Damon knew that Dezi’s personality could beabrasive—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 ofanother worker that they would work hard enough at the necessary personal adjustments.

It might not have been Dezi’s fault at all, Damon considered. Perhaps, if he did well at this, another Tower would take him. There was a crying need for strong natural telepaths, and Dezi was gifted, toogifted to waste. He saw the smile of pleasure, and knew Dezi had picked up the thought, but it didn’tmatter. A moment’s reproving thought, that vanity was a dangerous flaw for a matrix technician, knowingthat Dezi picked that up too, seemed enough.

“All right,” he said, “we’ll try. There’s no time to lose. Do you think you can work with me and

Andrew?”

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Dezi said sulkily, “Andrew doesn’t like me.”

“You’re too ready to think people don’t like you,” Damon reproved gently, thinking that it was bad enough for Dezi to know he chose him because Callista refused. But he could not betray Callista’s grief. And Ellemir should not try to do this work, so early in pregnancy. Pregnancy was about the only thing which could seriously interrupt a matrix worker’s capability, with its danger to the unborn child. And in the last day or two, linked with Ellemir, he had begun to pick up the first, faintest emanations of the developing brain, still formless, but
 
there
 
, real, enough to make their child a distinct separate presence to him.

He thought that there ought to be a way to compensate for this too, to protect a developing child. But hedidn’t know of any, and he wasn’t going to experiment with his own! So it was himself, Andrew, and Dezi.

Andrew, a little while later, when Damon broached the subject, frowned and said, “I can’t say I’m crazyabout the idea of working with Dezi.” But, at Damon’s remonstrance, admitted it was hardly worthy ofan adult, to hold a grudge against a boy in his teens, a youngster who had, admittedly, been drunk at thetime of the offense.

“And Dezi’s young for his age,” Damon told Andrew. “If he’d been acknowledged
 
nedestro
 
, he would have been given responsibilities to equal his privileges, all along. A year or two in the cadets would have made all the difference, or a year of good, hard, monkish discipline at Nevarsin. It’s our fault, not Dezi’s, that he’s turned out the way he has.”

Andrew did not protest further, but he still felt disquiet. No matter whose fault it was, if Dezi had flawsof character, Andrew did not feel right about working with him.

But Damon must know what he was doing. Andrew watched Damon making his preparations,remembering when he had first been taught to use a matrix. Callista had been part of the linkage of mindsthen, though she was still prisoner in the caves, and he had never seen her with his physical eyes. Andnow she was Keeper no more, and his wife…

Damon held his own matrix cradled between his hands, finally saying aloud, with an ironic smile, “I amalways afraid to do this outside a Tower. I never lose the fear that it is not safe. An absurd fear, perhaps,but a real one.”

Dezi said gently, “I am glad you are afraid too, Damon. I am glad to know it is not only me.”

Damon said, in a shaking voice, “I think anyone who is not afraid to use this kind of force probablyshould not be trusted with it at all. The forces were so misused in the Ages of Chaos that Regis Hasturthe Fourth decreed that from his day, no matrix circle should presume to use the great screens and relaysoutside the established Towers. That law was not made for such work as this, but there is still the senseof… of violating a taboo.” He turned to Andrew and said, “How would they treat frostbite in
your
world?”

Andrew answered thoughtfully, “The best treatment is arterial injection of neural stimulators:acetylcholine or something similar. Possibly transfusion, but medicine isn’t really my field.”

Damon sighed and said, “I seem to have been thrust into such work more often than I intended. Well, letus get on with it.” He let his mind sink deep into the matrix, reaching out for contact with Andrew. They

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had been linked before, and the old rapport quickly reestablished itself. For a moment there was a shadow-touch from Ellemir, only a hint, like the faint memory of a kiss, then she dropped gently out of the rapport at Damon’s admonition: she must guard her self and their child. For an instant Callista too lingered, a fragmentary touch, in the old closeness, and Andrew clung to the contact. For so long she had not touched even his hand and now they were linked together, close again—then, with : poignant sharpness, she broke the link, dropping away. Andrew felt empty and cold without the touch of her mind, and he sensed the wrenching aftertaste of grief. He was glad, for a moment, that Dezi was not yet in the rapport. Then Damon reached out and Andrew felt Dezi in the linkage, was momentarily aware of him, barriered, yet very much
 
there
 
, a cool firm strength, like a handclasp.

The threefold link persisted for a moment, Damon getting the feel of the two men with whom he mustwork so closely linked. With his eyes closed as always in a circle, he saw behind them the blue crystallinestructure of the matrix gems which held them linked together, amplifying and sending out the individual,definite, electronic resonances of their brains, and beyond that, the purely subjective feel of them.