The Spell Sword (10 page)

So how could Callista rouse in him that enormous and unqualified yes, that
absolute self-surrender, and Ellemir simply a shrug?

Ellemir put down her spoon. She said uneasily, "Why are you staring at me,
stranger?"

Andrew dropped his eyes. "Didn't realize I was."

She flushed to the roots of her hair. "Oh, don't apologize. I was staring too. I
suppose, when first I heard of men who had come here from other planets, I
halfway expected them to be strange, weird, like the strange creatures of horror
stories, things with horns and tails. And here you are, quite like any man from
the next valley. But I am only a country girl, and not as accustomed to new
things as people who live in the cities. So I am staring like any peasant who
never sees anything but his own cows and sheep."

For the first time Andrew sensed a faint, a very faint likeness to Callista: the
gentle directness, the straightforward honesty, without coquetry or wariness. It
warmed him to her, somehow, for all the hostility she had shown before.

Damon leaned forward, laying his hand over Ellemir's, and said, "Child, he does
not know our customs. He meant no offense.Stranger, among our people it is
offensive to stare at young girls. If you were one of us, I would be in honor
bound to call challenge on you. Ignorance can be forgiven in a child or a
stranger, but I can tell you are not a man who would deliberately offend women;
so I instruct you without offense." He smiled, as if anxious to reassure Carr
that he really meant none.

Uneasily, Carr looked away from Ellemir. That was a hell of a custom; it would
take some getting used to.

"I hope it's polite to ask questions," Andrew said. "I could use some answers.

You people live here-"

"It is Ellemir's home," Damon said. "Her father and brothers are at Comyn
Council at this season."

"You are her brother? Her husband?"

Damon shook his head. "A kinsman; when Callista was taken, she sent for me. And
we, too, would like to ask some questions. You are a Terran from the Trade City;
what were you doing in our mountains?"

Andrew told them a little about the Mapping and Exploring expedition. "My name's
Andrew Carr."

"Ann'dra," Ellemir repeated slowly, with a light inflection. "Why, that is not
so outlandish; there are Anndras and MacAnndras back in the Kilghard Hills,
MacAnndras and MacArans-"

And that was another thing, Andrew thought, the names on this planet. They were
a lot like Terran names. Yet, as far as he had ever heard, this wasn't one of
the colonies settled by Terran Empire ships and societies. Well, that wasn't
important now.

"Have you had quite enough to eat?" Damon asked. "You are sure? The cold here
can deplete your reserves very fast; you must eat well to recuperate."

Ellemir, nibbling at a plate of dried fruit resembling raisins, said, "Damon,
you eat as if you had been out in the blizzard for days."

"Believe me, it felt that way," Damon said wryly, and shivered. "I did not tell
you everything, because he came and we were distracted, but I was thrust into a
place where the storm had gone on, and if you had not brought me back-" He
stared at something invisible to Carr or the young woman. "Why don't we move to
the fire, and be comfortable," he said, "and then we can talk. Now that you are
warm and, I hope, comfortable-" He paused.

Andrew, guessing some formal remark was expected, said, "Very. Thank you."

"Now it is time to go over your story again, from the beginning, and in detail."

They moved to the fireside, Andrew on one of the high-backed benches, Ellemir in
a low chair. Damon dropped to the rug at her feet, and said, "Now begin, and
tell us everything. Especially I want to hear every word you exchanged with
Callista; even if you did not understand it, there may be some clue in it which
would mean something to us. You said that you saw her first after your plane
crashed-?"

"No, that was not the first time," Andrew said, and told them about the
fortune-teller in the Trade City, and the crystal, and how he had seen
Callista's face. He hesitated at the thought of trying to tell them exactly how
deep that random contact had gone, and finally left it without comment.

Ellemir asked, "And did you accept her as real, then?"

"No," Andrew said. "I thought it was a game-the fortune-telling. Maybe even that
the old dame was a procuress, showing me women for the usual reasons.

Fortune-telling is usually a swindle."

"How can that be?" Ellemir said. "Anyone who pretended to psi powers which she
did not in fact possess would be treated as a criminal! That is a very serious
offense!"

Andrew said dryly, "My people don't believe there are any psi powers which are
not pretended. At that time I thought that the girl was a dream. A
wish-fulfillment, if you like."

"Yet she was real enough for you to change your plans and decide to stay here on
Darkover," Damon said shrewdly.

Andrew felt uncomfortable under his knowing gaze, and said, "I had nowhere
special to go. I'm-what's the old saying? `I'm the cat who walked by himself and
all places are alike to me.' So this place was as good as any other and better
than most." (As he said it, he remembered Damon saying, "I know when I'm being
lied to," but he couldn't explain it and felt foolish trying.)
"Anyhow, I stayed. Say it seemed like a good idea at the time. Call it a whim."

To Carr's relief, Damon left it at that. He said, "In any case, and for whatever
reasons, you stayed. Exactly when was this?" Andrew figured out the time, and
Ellemir shook her head in puzzlement.

"At that time, Callista was safe in the Tower. She would hardly have sent any
psi message for help and comfort, certainly not to a stranger!"

Carr said stubbornly, "I don't ask you to believe it. I'm trying to tell you
just exactly what happened, the way I felt it. You're supposed to be the ones
who understand psychic things like this." Again, their eyes met in that queer
hostility.

Damon said, "In the overworld, time is often out of focus. There may have been
some element of precognition, for both of you."

Ellemir flared, "You're acting as if you believe his story, Damon."

"I'm giving him the benefit of the doubt, and I suggest you do likewise. I
remind you, Ellemir: neither you nor I can reach Callista. If this man has done
so, he may very well be our only link with her. It would be best not to anger
him."

She dropped her eyes and said curtly, "Go on. I won't interrupt again."

"So. Andrew, your next contact with Callista was when the plane crashed-?"

"After the plane crashed. I was lying half conscious on the ledge, and she
called to me, and told me to take shelter." Slowly, trying to recall word by
word what Callista had said to him, he told of how she had saved him from trying
to reenter the plane a moment before it crashed down into the bottom of the
ravine.

"Do you suppose you could find the place again?" Ellemir asked.

"I don't know. The mountains are bewildering, when you're not used to them. I
suppose I could try, though the trip was bad enough one way."

"I see no reason why it's necessary," Damon said. "Go on. When did she next
appear to you?"

"After the snow began. In fact, just about the time it was working up to
blizzard proportions, and I was ready to give up and decide it was all
completely hopeless, and the best thing to do was to pick out a comfortable spot
to lie down and die."

Damon thought that over a moment. He said, "Then the link between you is
two-way. Possibly her need established a link with you, the first time. But your
need and danger brought her to you that time, at least."

"But if Callista is free in the overworld," Ellemir cried out, "why could she
not come to you there, Damon? Why could Leonie not reach her? It makes no
sense!"

She looked so distressed, so frantic, that Carr could not endure it. It was too
much like Callista's weeping. "She told me she did not know where she was-that
she was being kept in darkness. If it is any comfort to you, Ellemir, she came
to me only because she had tried, and failed, to reach you." He tried to
reconstruct her exact words. It wasn't easy, and he was beginning to suspect
that Callista had reached his mind directly without too much need for words.

"She said something like-I think- it was as if the minds of her kinsfolk and
friends had all been erased from the surfaces of this world, and that she had
wandered around a long time in the dark looking for you, until she had found
herself in communication with me. And then she said that she kept coming back to
me because she was frightened and alone"-he heard his own voice thicken and
catch-"and because a stranger was better than no one at all. She said she
thought she was being kept in a part of that level-overworld you call it?- where
her people's minds could not reach."

"But how? Why?" Ellemir demanded.

"I'm sorry," Carr said humbly. "I don't know a thing about it. Your sister had a
dreadful time trying to explain even that much to me, and I'm still not sure
I've got it straight. If what I say isn't accurate, it's not because I'm lying,
it's because I just don't have the language to put it in. I seemed to understand
it when Callista was telling me about it, but it's something else to try to tell
it in your language."

Ellemir's face softened a little. "I don't think you're lying, Ann'dra," she
said, again mispronouncing his name in that strange soft way. "If you'd come
here with some evil purpose, I'm sure you could tell much better lies than
those. But anything you can tell us about Callista, please try to say it
somehow. Has she been hurt, did she seem to be in pain, had she been
ill-treated? Did you actually see her, and how did she look? Oh, yes, you must
have seen her if you recognized me."

Andrew said, "She did not seem to be injured, although there was a bruise on her
cheek. She was wearing a thin blue dress, it looked like a nightgown; no one in
her right senses would have worn it out-of-doors. It had-" He closed his eyes,
the better to visualize her. "It had some kind of embroidery around the hem, in
green and gold, but it was torn and I could not see the design."

Ellemir shivered faintly. "I know the gown. I have one like it. Callista wore it
to bed the night we were-raided. Tell me more, quickly!"

"Proof of the truth of his tale," Damon said. "I saw her, only for an instant,
in the overworld. She still wore that nightdress. Which tells me two things. He
has in fact seen Callista. And-a little more ominous-she cannot, for some
reason, although she walks in the overworld as if it were her own courtyard,
clothe herself in anything more suitable, even in thought. When I have seen her
before this in the overworld, she was clothed as befits a leronis- a sorceress,"

he added to Andrew, in explanation, "in her crimson robes, and veiled as a
Keeper should be." He repeated, unwillingly, what Leonie had said: "If she were
drugged, or entranced, or her starstone taken from her, or if she had been so
ill-treated that her mind had darkened into madness-"

"I can't believe that," Andrew said. "Everything she did was too-too sensible,
too purposeful, if you will. She guided me to one specific place, in the
blizzard; and she came back again, so she could show me where to find food that
had been stored there for emergencies. I asked her if she was cold, and she told
me it was not cold where she was. Also-when I saw the bruise on her face-I
asked, and she told me she had not been hurt or really ill-treated."

Damon said, `Try to remember everything she said to you."

"She told me that the herdsman's hut where I sheltered from the storm was not
more than a few miles from here. What she said was, she wished she were there
with me in body, so that when the storm was over, in a little while she could
be-" he frowned, again trying to remember a communication which now seemed to be
more in thoughts than words-"warm and safe and at home."

"I know the place," Damon said. "Coryn and I slept there, when we were boys, on
hunting trips. It is something, that Callista could come there in thought." He
rowned, trying to add it all up. "What else did Callista say to you?"

It was after that, that I woke and found her sleeping almost in my arms, Andrew
thought, but I'm damned if I'm going to tell you about that. That's strictly
between me and Callista. And yet, if some random thing she had said to him might
give Damon a clue to her actual whereabouts- He paused, irresolute.

Damon could clearly see the conflict in his face, and followed it more
accurately than Andrew would have believed. He said kindly, trying to spare him,
"I can well believe that alone in the dark, and both of you in strange and
hostile places, you may well have exchanged-" He paused, and Andrew, sensitized
to his mood, knew that Damon was searching for a word which would not trespass
too strongly on his emotions. "Exchanged-confidences. You don't have to tell us
about that."

Funny, how these people can get so close to you, know almost what you're
thinking. Andrew was aware of Damon's attempt not to trespass on his privacy, or
on the more intimate things he had shared with Callista. Intimate. funny word
when I've never set eyes on her. To have come so close, so close to a woman I've
never seen. He was also aware of Ellemir's sullen face and knew that she, too,
sensed something of how close he had come to her twin; and that she did not
approve.

Damon, too, sensed Ellemir's resentment. "Child, you should be grateful that
anyone, anyone at all, could reach Callista. Just because you could not come to
her and comfort her, are you going to resent the fact that a stranger could?

Would you rather that she should be all alone in her prison?" He turned back to
Andrew and said, as if apologizing for Ellemir, "She is very young, and they are
twins. But for your kindness to my kinswoman, I am ready to be your friend. Now,
if you can tell me anything she said, about her captors-"