City of Sorcery (10 page)

At last, reluctantly, the intensity of loving communion ebbed (although Magda knew in some deeper reality that it would always be a part of her, always renewed and reassuring), and Ellemir said, “But my dears, we expected to have you here more than a tenday ago. I know the weather in Thendara is harsh sometimes, but I have heard of no storms, even in the pass. What has happened?”

With a humorous question from someone
-
Kester
? -
wanting to know what pleasures of the big city kept them away, friends, lovers
-
something like a swift reprimand for this intrusion from Damon
-
Ellemir’s ill-concealed wonder that anything could keep two mothers from their children
-
Andrew’s special enfolding of Magda in something that was very private between them, a bond of shared experiences stronger than love
-

“Cholayna had need for me, and Jaelle stayed to keep me company,” Magda told them, and swiftly shared the knowledge of the downed plane in the Hellers. Something might have drifted through into the overworld.

She felt Andrew’s surge of anger like a dull flame of colors, crimson and burnt orange, surrounding the outline of his body; she could sometimes see this even when they were both in their bodies. Here it was unmistakable.

“They should not have asked it of you, Magda.”
Damn the Anders woman, nothing was worth doing that to you. That is like the Terrans, their damnable Need to Know, regardless. They have no idea of human needs
-

“That’s too strong, Andrew. Cholayna made a point of telling me I could refuse.”

Andrew dismissed that. “You should have refused. I’ll bet you didn’t find out anything worth knowing.”

“I did bring Lexie back,” Magda defended herself. “She might have stayed like that indefinitely! And there was more.” On an impulse, she shared quickly with Callista the image with which she had come away from Lexie’s mind.

Robed figures, deep hoods. The sound of crows calling, drifting through a silence deeper than the depths of the overworld…

Momentarily she could sense that Callista did not find it new, not quite.

I have encountered strange
leroni
in the overworld, now and again
, Callista’s memory reached them all at once.
Not often, and only a glimmering. Once when I was very ill
- her mind edged away from the ordeal in which she had been made Keeper at Arilinn -
and again when I was trapped in the other planes of the overworld and could reach nothing familiar. I remember the calling of strange birds, and dark forms, and little more. Your friend - Alexis? - if, in extremity, she teleported herself from the crashed plane, she may have crossed some strange places in the overworld. I truly do not think it was more than that, Margali.

“But what of the crashed plane? And no trace of it found - “

“I have a theory for that, too,” said Damon, and the familiar sensation of warmth, strength, protection
(their Keeper, closer than a lover, the figure around whom the Forbidden Tower had gathered, the only one in all the Domains who had had the courage for this, to restore Hilary and Callista to full strength in spite of the laws which forbade a failed Keeper from ever again taking up her
laran,
their shelter and their strength and their lover and their father all at once)
…

Again the disparity from what Magda knew as “reality” and how Damon appeared here in the overworld: in real life, a small, dark-haired, insignificant-looking man with fading hair and tired eyes, showing his age - he was a good twenty years older than Andrew, who was somewhat older than Ellemir or Callista. But here where the things of the spirit were made manifest, Damon appeared to be a tall, strong and imposing man, who gave the impression of a warrior. It had taken a warrior to resist the power of Leonie Hastur, the Keeper of Arilinn, who ruled all the Towers in the Domains with the same iron hand with which her twin brother, Lorill Hastur, ruled the Domains. Damon had won from Leonie, in a psychic battle against terrible odds, the right to establish what was now called, defiantly, the Forbidden Tower.

“I have a theory about the disappearance of your plane,” Damon said. “If the Anders woman truly summoned up, from latency in her mind, a new psi skill and teleported herself - and that’s not impossible, I saw Callista do it when we were imprisoned among the catmen - the pure energy had to come from somewhere. She did not, of course, have a matrix,” Damon added. The matrix stones were crystals which had the curious property of transforming thought-waves into energy without transition by-products.

“Somehow, as she summoned the strength to translocate, to teleport herself, she used the kinetic mass of the Terran airplane for the energy requirement. That energy couldn’t have come from nowhere, after all. In effect, she disintegrated and atomized the plane and utilized that immense energy for the strength to make the teleportation possible. No wonder they couldn’t locate the plane, even with satellites. It doesn’t exist anymore. It’s disintegrated.”

“I think that’s a little far-fetched, Damon,” Andrew argued. “Where would she get the strength, let alone the knowledge, to do that? If she was a trained psi-tech, even from some other world and some other tradition, I suppose she might have managed it. But a complete novice - possibly head-blind? I can’t imagine it. She would have needed help.”

“Maybe she had help, from those stray
leroni
Callista mentioned; she might have crossed someplace in the overworld, and there found such help,” suggested Kieran.

“Does it matter?” Ellemir asked practically. She was always the pragmatic one. “It’s gone, and I suppose it doesn’t matter how or why unless the Terrans get a bee in their bonnet about mounting a salvage operation to try to find if there’s a record in - what did you call it, the black box? - of whatever it was she spotted beyond the Wall.”

“They’d have a lot of fun with that,” Andrew said, with dry irony. “I used to work for M-and-Ex. There’s nothing out there, nothing at all.”

“Let them look,” Lady Hilary said with the equivalent of a shrug. “It will keep them busy and out of trouble. Some of the Terrans may be very nice people - ” and her affectionate look encompassed both Magda and Andrew. “But what do we care what foolish quests they may attempt? When are you coming back to us, dear sisters? We miss you. And the children - “

She broke off, for the little group where they were gathered had suddenly been enlarged by two others.

Kiha Margali
- it was like a gentle tug at Magda’s arm, and Cassilde, a girl of fourteen, fair-haired and blue-eyed, was immediately enfolded in Magda’s embrace.

And Magda felt the surprise in the circle. None of them had known that Callista’s eldest daughter had gained access to the overworld. Young children did not, as a usual thing, have much
laran
- although Cassilde was approaching the age at which any latent
laran
she might have would be surfacing at any time.

Am I dreaming, Mother? Kiha
-
am I dreaming? Or are you all really here
?

“Perhaps you are only dreaming,
chiya
,” Damon said gently, and again his thought, wordless, embraced them all.
But she is old enough, we must begin teaching her properly
.

But even as their warm welcome enfolded young Cassie, there was a cry and a clamor for attention.

Mama! Oh, I called you, and see, you have come
-

Jaelle enfolded Cleindori in her arms, but the child’s confusion astonished them all. Cassilde, at the very verge of puberty, might well have gained access to these non-material planes of thought and spirit; that Cleindori could have done so at five years old was preposterous.

Cassie, my darling, even if you have skill for this, you should not attempt it until you learn the proper way to safeguard yourself
, Callista admonished her, gently; and Andrew added, in his kindest and most fatherly tone,
Even if you can come here, child, you should not bring Cleindori with you
.

“I didn’t,” Cassie began, and simultaneously Cleindori clamored, “Cassie didn’t bring me, I came all by myself, I love Auntie Ellemir, love her lots, but I wanted
you
, Mama, and you stayed away so long, so long! I called you and you came, and I can
too
come here without Cassie bringing me, I come here lots, I can even bring Shaya here,
look
!” Cleindori was crying with loud anger.

And Magda saw her two-year-old daughter, nightgowned, her dark hair tousled from the pillow; she said sleepily, “Mama?”

Half-unbelieving, Magda took the child into a close embrace. Although their bodies were separated by a three days’ journey, it felt as if she were holding the actual child in her arms, the snuggling warmth of the little body, the small sleepy head on her shoulder. Ah, she had missed her, how she had missed her! But Shaya, at least, was here only in a dream. She would wake tomorrow, remembering that she had dreamed of her mother; Magda hoped she would not cry.

“Now this is enough!” said Ellemir, with firm authority. “We see what you have done, Cleindori, but this is not allowed. Take Shaya back to bed at once. And you, Cassie, you should go back to bed, too, you are not strong enough to stay out of your body this long. Tomorrow, I promise you, if no one else here will teach you to do it properly, I will do so myself. But for now, you must go back.”

Cassie vanished. But Damon took Cleindori gently from her mother’s arms. “Listen to me, daughter, I know you are only a very little girl, but since you have done this, we must acknowledge that you are old enough to do it. Do you know where you are,
chiya
?”

“It’s the gray world. I don’t know what you call it. I think it’s the place I go when I dream, isn’t it?”

“That and more, little one. Have you been here before?”

Cleindori struggled to find words. “I don’t remember when I couldn’t come here. I always came here. I think I was here with Mama and Shaya before I was born. When Auntie Ellemir told me about how babies came, before Shaya was born, I was surprised, because I thought they came from the gray world. Because I used to talk to Shaya before she was a baby. She was all grown up here, and then suddenly she was a baby and couldn’t talk to me anymore except when we were
here
.”

Merciful Evanda
! Magda thought. In childish words, Cleindori had explicated a metaphysical theory that was beyond her, and probably beyond all of them; except perhaps, Callista and Damon, who had studied these things.

Damon certainly understood. He hugged the small girl close and said, “But in that world down there, my darling, you are only a little girl, and your body is not strong enough for you to spend much time here. Do you remember Aunt Margali telling you that Shaya could not eat nut-cake till her teeth were grown? Well,
your
body is not grown enough for this, Dori. You must stay in it until you know just how to leave it. You must come here only in dreams, little one; and especially you must not try to bring Shaya here until she is able to come and go without your help. Remember how you watched the chickens pecking their way out of the shell, and you wanted to help?”

She nodded soberly. “I did try to help one, and it died.”

“Then you know why you must not help Shaya do anything she is too young to do. She too may stray to this level in dreams. You may ask her to try to dream with you. But no more.”

“But when we’re dreaming we can’t stay here long enough.”

“No, but you can stay here as long as you are able, and it will not harm you. But you must not come here except in dreams, my daughter. Will you promise me that?”

She looked into Damon’s eyes, and Magda, still deeply in rapport with Damon, saw the child’s eyes, and they were not like a child’s eyes at all.

Then Cleindori said with unusual meekness, “I promise, Dada.”

“Then both of you, back to sleep,” said Damon with a gently banishing gesture, and both children vanished into wisps of dream. Extending her awareness, Magda could see the children in their cots, side by side, fast asleep.