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She shook her head, saying faintly, “No. But if it would make any difference… I have spoken to Ellemirabout this. She told me… she is willing.”

Andrew stared at her, dismay and consternation mingling in his emotions. “Are you serious?”

But she was. Her grave face told him that, and anyway she was not, he knew, capable of making thatkind of joke. “Ellemir? She is the last, the very last—your own sister, Callista! How could I do such athing to you?”

“Do you believe it makes me happy to see you so miserable, to know that a brat like Dezi can shame you that way? And how could I be jealous of my own sister?” He made a gesture of revulsion, and she put her hand out to him. “No, Andrew, listen to me. This is our custom. If you were one of us, it would be taken for granted that my sister and I should… should share in this way. Even if things were — as they should be between us, if there was a time when I was ill, or pregnant, or simply not… not wanting you… It is very old, this custom. You have heard me sing the Ballad of Hastur and Cassilda? Even there, even in the ballad, it speaks of how Camilla took the place of her
 
breda
 
in the arms of the God, and so died when he was set upon. It was so that the Blessed Cassilda survived the treachery of Alar, to bear the child of the God…” Her voice faded.

Andrew said flatly, “That kind of thing may be all very well in old ballads and fairy-tales. But not in reallife.”

“Even if I wish it, Andrew? I would feel less guilt because every additional day I delayed was adding

to… to your suffering.”

“Suppose you let me worry about that? There’s no need for you to feel guilty.” But she turned away, weary and defeated. She stood up, letting her released hair shower down to her waist, slowly took it in handfuls, separating it for braiding. She said, stifled, “I cannot endure this any longer.”

He said gently, “Then it is for you to end it, Callista.” He picked up a fine strand of her hair, pressing it to

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his lips, savoring the fine texture, the delicate fragrance. He felt dizzy at the touch. He had promised never

to try to hurry her. But how long, how long…?

“My darling, what can I say to you? Is the thought so frightening to you, even now?”

She sounded forlorn, wretched. “I know it shouldn’t be. But I am afraid. I don’t think I’m ready—”

He put his arms around her, very gently. He said, almost in a whisper, “How will you know, Callista,unless you try? Will you come and sleep beside me? No more than that—I swear to you I won’t askanything you’re not ready to give me.”

She hesitated, twisting a lock of her hair. She said, “Won’t it… won’t it make it worse for you, if Ishould decide I… I can’t, I’m not ready yet?”

“Must I swear it to you, love? Don’t you trust me?”

She said, with a heartbreaking smile, “It isn’t you I don’t trust, my husband.” The words made his breathcatch in his throat.

“Then…?” He held her loosely within the circle of his arms. After a long time, almost imperceptibly, she

nodded.

He gently picked her up in his arms and carried her to his bed. He said, laying her down on the pillows, “Why, then, if you feel that way, isn’t it proof that it’s time, my darling? I promise you I will be gentle withyou—”

She shook her head, whispering, “Oh, Andrew, if it were only as simple as that!” Her eyes filled andflooded with tears. Suddenly she put her arms up around his neck.

“Andrew, will you do something for me? Something you may not want to do? Andrew, promise?”

He said, aching with love, “I can’t think of anything in this world or any other that I wouldn’t do for you,

Callie. My darling, my treasure, anything, anything that would make it easier for you.”

She looked up at him, trembling. “This, then,” she said. “Knock me unconscious. Take me by force, thistime, while I cannot resist—”

Andrew drew back, looking down at her in blank horror. For a moment he literally could not speak hisdismay and revulsion. At last he said stammering, “You must be mad, Callista! In God’s name, howcould I do such a thing to any woman alive? And least of all to you!”

She looked up in despair. “You promised.”

Now he was angry. “What
 
are
 
you, Callista? What kind of mad, perverse—” Words failed him. Cold tohis gentleness, did she crave his cruelty, then?

Her eyes were still flooding quiet tears. She said, picking up the thought, “No, no, I never thought youwould
want
 
to. It was the only way I could think of—oh, Avarra pity me, I should have died, I shouldhave died—”

She turned over, burying her head in the pillow, and began to cry so wildly that Andrew was terrified.

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He lay down beside her, tried to take her in his arms, but she wrenched violently away from him. Dismayed, in an agony almost as great as her own, Andrew picked her up, holding her against him,stroking and soothing her, trying to make contact with her mind, but she had slammed down the barrieragainst him. He held her, silent, letting her cry. At last she lay resistless in his arms as she had not donesince he carried her out of the caves of Corresanti, and it seemed to him that some inner barrier haddissolved too. She whispered, “You’re so good to me, and I’m so ashamed.”

“I love you, Callista. But I think you’ve built this thing up in your mind, out of all proportion. I think we were wrong to wait then, and the longer we wait the worse it’s going to be.” He felt the familiar touch on his mind and he knew, now, that she welcomed it, as in that time of loneliness and fear. She said, “I wasn’t afraid then.”

He said, firmly and surely, “Nothing has changed since then except that I love you more.”

He didn’t know all that much about sexual inhibitions, but he did know there was such a state aspathological frigidity, and what little he had been told about a Keeper’s training confirmed his suspicionthat this must be what had been done to her: a total conditioning against any kind of sexual response. Hewas not naive enough to believe that a gentle seduction would ease all her fears and turn her into apassionate and responsive wife, but it seemed that was the only place to start. It might, at least, reassureher.

They were deeply in contact now. He sensed that she felt no trace of the physical arousal which was sostrong in him, but he knew that she hungered for the closeness which could end this cold constraintbetween them. He drew her gently to him. He wanted her, yes, but not unwilling. He wanted her to sharethe tempest of passion that made him tremble. There was no need for words. She drew his face down toher, laying her lips against his in a shy hesitation, and he felt a sudden disquiet. He had never known aninexperienced woman before. Yet he could feel—they were deeply in contact now— the tremendouseffort she was making not to shrink from his touch. It seemed that he would burst with tenderness. Shewas pliant in his arms, shyly touching him, not trying to conceal her lack of response. It was not thepassivity of ignorance—she evidently understood what he expected of her— but there was not thefaintest hint of physical arousal.

He reached out again for her mind. Then, through the familiar presence which was hers, he sensed aconfusion, something else, alien yet familiar, strongly sexual.
 
Ellemir? Damon and Ellemir
 
? His firstreaction was to withdraw, slam down mental barriers—
 
I’m no voyeur
!—but then, hesitant and stilltentative, he could feel Callista drop into the fourway fusion, the old link among them reestablishing itselfas it had done when they were all linked together within the matrix. And for the first time he felt a yieldingin Callista, not a mental yielding alone, but a physical softening. She was less apprehensive, as if this wasless frightening for her, shared with her twin. As he was drawn into the fourfold link, into intenseparticipation in the lovemaking of the other couple, it seemed for an instant that it was Ellemir in his arms,that it was she who embraced him, opening herself wholly to him, warm, responsive—No, it was onlythat Callista had submerged herself in Ellemir’s response, and through it he could feel Callista’s shysurprise, the reassurance of Ellemir’s excitement and pleasure. He pressed his mouth to hers, in a long,searching kiss, and for the first time felt a flicker of actual response. Callista was no longer passivelypermitting him to do what he would, she was actually sharing in the kiss for the first time.

Had she needed this kind of reassurance, then? At his urging whisper, she pressed herself warmlyagainst him. He knew she was deeply merged now in Ellemir’s consciousness, sharing Ellemir’s response,letting it take over her own body. He could feel Damon too, and that was disquieting, or was it only thathe could also feel and share Ellemir’s response to Damon’s strange, provokingly sensual mixture ofgentleness and violence?

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For a moment it seemed to him that this was enough for now, to drift on the surface of
 
their
 
passionateembrace, to seek no more, to let himself merge in this warm, welcoming multiple consciousness. But itwas still too strange for him, and his own body, demanding now, urgent, insisted on completion. Like aswimmer coming up for air he gasped, trying to disentangle himself from the multiple mind-link, to narrowhis consciousness down to Callista alone, Callista in his arms, fragile, vulnerable, wholly pliant, whollyyielding.

Suddenly, with unimaginable violence, the fragile mesh of consciousness shattered. All at once he felt atearing, burning pain in his genitals. Shocked, crying out, he heard Callista scream in despair and wildprotest and felt himself torn from her arms, hurtling through the air. His mind spun dizzily.
 
This couldn’tbe real
 
! His head struck something sharp, and in a blaze of pain, crimson lights exploding like bombsinside his head, he lost consciousness.

Chapter Eight

«^»

He was lying on the floor.

Before consciousness came fully back, he was aware of that, and of the fuzzy protest,
 
How the hell did I get here
 
? There was a sharp pain in his head, and a worse one in his groin. Someone lifted his head. He made a noise of protest as his head exploded, and opened his eyes. Damon, stark naked, waskneeling beside him.

“Lie still,” he said sharply, as Andrew struggled to rise. “Let me wipe the blood out of your eyes, you

idiot!”

Andrew’s main emotion, displacing even pain, was outrage. He pushed Damon’s hand violently away.

“What the bloody hell are you doing here? How dare you? Callista and I—”

“So,” said Damon, with a wry half-smile, “were we. As you damn well know. Do you think we wanted to be interrupted like that? But better us than the servants, man, rushing up to find out who’s being murdered. In hell’s name, didn’t you hear Callista screaming?”

All Andrew could hear was a sobbing whimper, but it seemed that somewhere in his mind was anawareness, not quite a memory, of shattering screams. He struggled to his feet, disregarding Damon’ssteadying hand.

“Callista! I must go to her—”

“Ellemir’s with her, and I don’t think she can face you just yet. Let me look at this.” His probing hands

were so impersonal that Andrew could take no offense. “Does this hurt?”

It did. Damon looked grave, but after some more probing, said, “No permanent damage to the testicles, I guess. No, don’t try to look, you’re not familiar with wounds and it will look worse to you than it is. Can you see all right?”

Andrew tried. “Fuzzy,” he said. Damon mopped at the cut on his forehead again. “Head wounds bleedlike hell, but I think that needs a stitch or two.”

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“Never mind that.” Callista’s sobs tore at his consciousness. “Is Callista all right? Oh, God, did I hurt

her?”

“Did
you
 
hurt
her
 
?” Ellemir said waspishly behind them. “She didn’t
 
quite
 
manage to kill you, this

time.”

“Let her alone,” said Andrew, fiercely protective. All he remembered was passion, and

violent—terrifyingly violent— interruption. “What happened, an earthquake?”

Callista was lying on her side, her face swollen from crying. Naked, she seemed so defenseless that