The Keeper's Price Read online

  “Both channels are contaminated, the left somewhat more than the right; the right only in the nerve nodes, the left all the way from the center complex. There are three focuses of resistance on the left-”

  Damon sighed. “Well, Hilary,” he said gently, “you know as well as I what must be done. If we wait much longer, you will go into convulsions again.”

  Hilary flinched inwardly with dread, out her face showed nothing, and somewhere, in a remote corner of her being, she was proud of her control.

  “Go and fetch some kirian, Callista, there is no sense waking anyone else for this,” Leonie said, and when the child returned with it, she was about to run away. But Leonie said, “This time, you must stay, Callista. There may be times when you must do this unaided, and it is not too early to learn every step of the process.”

  Callista met Hilary's eyes, and there was a flash of rebellion in them. She thought, I could never hurt anyone like that . . . but despite her' terrible fear, she forced herself to stand quiet.

  Will they make me go through it this time in rapport with her . . . ?

  Damon held Hilary's hand, giving her the telepathic drug which would, a little, ease the resistances to what contact they must make with her mind and body, clearing the channel. Hilary was incoherent now, slipping rapidly into delirium; her thoughts blurred, and Callista could hardly make them out.

  Once again to lie still and let myself be cut into pieces and then stitched back together again, that is what it feels like . . . and they are training even little Callista to be a torturer's assistant . . . to stand by without a flicker of pity. . . .

  “Gently, gently, my darling,” Leonie said, and the compassion and dread would communicate itself to Hilary and added, “when it is over, it will be better.”

  She is so cruel, and so kind, how do I know which is real? Callista could not tell whether it was her own thought or Hilary's. She knew she was tense, numb with fear, and forced herself to breathe deeply and relax, fearing that her own tension and dread would communicate itself to Hilary and add to the other girl's ordeal; and she watched with amazement and dread as Hilary's taut face relaxed, wondered at the discipline which let Hilary go limp; Callista forced herself to calm, to detachment, watching every step of the long and agonizing process of clearing the blocked nerve channels.

  When they were sure she wasn't going to die, not this time anyway, they left her sleeping - Callista, feeling Hilary slip down into the heaviness of sleep under the sedative they had given her, felt almost light-headed with relief; at least she was free of pain! Damon went to find himself a delayed breakfast, and Leonie, in the hallway outside Hilary's door, said softly, “I am sorry you had to endure that, little one, but it was time for you to learn; and you needed the practice in detachment. Come, she will sleep all day and perhaps most of the night, and when she wakes, she will be well. And next month we must make sure she does not overwork herself this way at this time.”

  When they were in Leonie's rooms, facing one another over the small table set in the window, and Leonie was pouring for them from the heavy silver pot, Callista felt tears flooding the back of her throat. Leonie said quietly, “You can cry now, if you must, Callista. But it would be better if you could learn to master your tears, too.”

  Callista bent her head with a silent struggle; finally she said, “Leonie, it was worse this time, wasn't it? She's been getting worse; hasn't she?”

  “I'm afraid so; ever since she began work with the energons. Last time it took her three days to build up enough energy leakage to go into crisis.”

  “Does she know?”

  “No. She doesn't remember much of what happens when she's in pain.”

  “But Leonie - she wants, so terribly, not to disappoint you-” and so do I, thought Callista, struggling again with her tears.

  “I know, Callista, but she'll die if she keeps this up. She is simply too frail to endure the stress. There may be some kind of inborn weakness in the channels - I am to blame, that I accepted her without being certain there was no such physical weakness. Yet she has such talent and skill-” Leonie shook her head sorrowfully. “You may not believe it, Callista, but I would gladly take all her pain upon myself if it would cure her. I feel I cannot bear to hurt her again like that!”

  Before the vehemence in the older woman's voice Callista was shocked and amazed.

  Can she still feel? I thought she had taught herself to be wholly indifferent to the sufferings of others, and she would have me.

  “No,” Leonie said, with a remote sadness, “I am not indifferent to suffering, Callista.”

  But you hurt me so, this morning.

  “And I will hurt you again, as often as I must,” Leonie said, “but, believe me, child, I would so much rather . . .” She could not finish, but, in shock, Callista realized that she meant what she said; Leonie would willingly suffer for her, too ... suddenly, Callista knew that instead of indifference, Leonie's level voice held agonized restraint.

  “My mother,” Callista burst out, through the restraint, “will I suffer so, when I am become a woman?”

  Could I endure it? Time and again, to be torn by that kind of pain . . . and then to be torn apart by the clearing process . ..

  “I do not know, dear child. I truly hope not.”

  Did you? But Callista knew she would never dare to put her unspoken question into words. Leonie's restraint had gone so deep that even to herself she had probably barricaded even the memory of pain.

  “Isn't there anything we can do?”

  “For Hilary? Probably not. Except to care for her while we can, and when it is truly too much for her to endure, release her.” It seemed now to Callista that Leonie's calm was sadder than tears or hysterical weeping. “But for you - I do not know. Perhaps. You might not wish it. lf I had my way,” Leonie said, “every girl coming to work here as Keeper would be neutered before she comes to womanhood!”

  Callista flinched as if the Keeper had spoken an obscenity; indeed, by Comyn standards she had. But she said obediently, “If that is your will, my mother-”

  Leonie shook her head. “The laws forbid it. I wonder if the Council know what they are doing to you with their concern? But there is another way. You know that we cannot begin your training until your cycles of womanhood are established-”

  “The monitors have said it will be more than a year.”

  “That is late; which means there is still time.”

  Callista had eagerly awaited the first show of blood, which would mean that she was a woman grown, ready to begin her serious training as Keeper; now she had begun to think of it with dread. Leonie said, “If we were to begin your training now, it would make certain physical alterations in your body; and the cycles probably would not begin at all. This is why we are not supposed to begin this training until the Keeper-novice is come to womanhood, the training changes a body still immature. And then you would never have the problem Hilary has had ... but I cannot do this without your consent, even to save you suffering.”

  To be spared what Hilary suffered? Callista wondered why Leonie should hesitate a moment.

  “Because it might mean much to you, when you are older,” Leonie said. “You might wish to leave, to marry.”

  Callista made a gesture of repugnance. She had been taught to turn her thoughts away from such things; in her innocence she felt only the most enormous contempt for the relationship between men and women. Secure in her chastity, she wondered why Leonie believed she could ever be false to the pledge she had sworn to perpetual virginity.

  “I will never wish to marry. Such things are not for me,” she said, and Leonie shook her head, with a little sigh.

  “It would mean that you would remain much as you are now, for the cycles would not begin. . . .”

  “Do you mean I wouldn't grow up?” Callista did not think she wished to remain always a child.

  “Oh, yes,” Leonie said, “You would grow up, but without that token of womanhood.”

 
“But since I am sworn to be Keeper,” said Callista, who had been taught a considerable amount of anatomy and knew, at least technically, what that maturity meant, “I do not see why I should need it.”

  Leonie smiled faintly. “You are right, of course. I would that I had been spared it, all those many years.”

  Callista looked at her in surprise and wonder; never had Leonie spoken to her like this, or loosened even a little the cold barricade she kept against any kind of personal revelation.

  So she is not . . . not superhuman. She is only a woman, like Hilary or Romilla or . . . or me . . . she can weep and suffer ... I thought, when I was grown, when I had learned my lessons well and had come to be Keeper, that I would learn not to feel such things or to suffer with them. . . . It was a terrifying thought, a new terror among the terrors she had known here, that she would not safely outgrow those feelings. She had believed that her own sufferings were only because she was a child, not yet perfected in learning. I had believed that to be a Keeper one must outgrow these feelings, that one reason I was not yet ready was that I still had not learned to stop feeling so. . . .

  Leonie watched her, without speaking, her face remote and sad.

  She is such a child, she is only now beginning to guess at the price of being Keeper. . .

  But all she said aloud was, “You are right, of course, my dearest; since you are sworn to be Keeper, you do not need that, and you will be better without it, and if we should begin your training now, you, will be spared.”

  Again she hesitated and warned, “You know it is against custom. You will be asked if I have fully explained it to you, what it will mean, and if you are truly willing; because I could· not, under the laws made by those who have never stepped inside a Tower and would not be accepted if they did, do this to you without your free consent. Do you completely understand this, Callista ?”

  And Callista thought, She speaks as if it were a great price I must pay, that I might be unwilling. As if it were deprivation, something taken from me. Instead it means only that I can be Keeper, and that I need not pay the terrible price Hilary has had to pay.

  “I understand, Leonie,” she said, steadily, “and I am willing. When can I begin?”

  “As soon as you like, then; Callista.”

  But why, Callista wondered, does Leonie look so sad?