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For an instant Kerwin held her tight, his own face like death. He whispered, under his breath, “Oh,

Elorie, Elorie…” But then, steeling himself, he put her gently away.

“Now do you see why I must go?” he said, almost in a whisper, speaking to her alone. “I
 
must
 
go,

Elorie, and you know it as well as I. Don’t make it harder for me.”

He saw shock, anger, compassion, accusation dawning in the faces all around him. Neyrissa came totake Elorie away, murmuring to her, but Elorie flung off her hand. Her voice was high and shrill.

“No. If this is what Jeff has decided, or what you force on him, then I have decided too, and it is over. I—I can’t give up my life for it this way anymore!” She faced them all, her eyes enormous, looking like bruises in her pale face.

“But Elorie, Lori,” Neyrissa pleaded. “You know why you cannot withdraw, you know how much you

are needed—”

“And what am I, then? A doll, a machine to serve the Comyn and the Tower?” she cried, her voice high

and hysterical. “No. No. It’s too much! I cannot stand it, I renounce it—”

“Elorie—
 
breda
,” Taniquel pleaded. “Don’t say that—not like this, not now, not here! I know how you

feel, but—”

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“You say you know how I feel! You dare to say that to me, you who have lain in his arms and known

his love! Oh, no, you have not denied yourself, but you are all too ready to tell me what I must do—”

“Elorie,” Kennard’s voice was tender. “You don’t know what you are saying. I beg of you, remember

who you are—”

“I know who I am supposed to be!” she cried, sounding frantic, beside herself. “A Keeper, a
 
leronis
 
, a

sacred virgin without mind or heart or soul or life of my own, a machine for the relays—”

Kennard closed his eyes in agony, and Kerwin, looking at the old man’s face, seemed to hear wordsspoken like this, years before, and saw, mirrored in Kennard’s mind and memory, the face of hismother.
 
Cleindori. Oh, my poor sister
 
! But aloud Kennard only said, very gently, “Lori, my darling.

Everything you suffer, others have suffered before you. When you came to Arilinn, you knew it would notbe easy. We cannot allow you to renounce us, not now. Another Keeper is being trained, and when thatday comes you can be freed. But not now,
 
chiya
 
, or you throw away all we have done.”

“I cannot! I cannot live like this!” Elorie cried. “Not now, when at last I know what it is I swore to

renounce!”

“Lori, my child— ” Neyrissa said softly, but Elorie turned on her like a fury. “You have lived as you saw fit, you found freedom, not slavery in the Tower! For you it was a refuge; for me it has never been anything but a prison! You and Tani both, you are quick to urge me to give up forever what you have known, love and shared joy and children—” her voice broke. “I didn’t know, I didn’t know, and now—” She flung herself into Jeff’s arms again; he could not put her away.

Auster said in a low voice, staring at Elorie in horror, “This is worse treachery than the Terrans couldever compass. And to think, Jeff, that I believed you had done this innocently!”

Rannirl shook his head, staring at them in dismay. He said in a low, vicious voice, “I gave you my knife. Icalled you brother. And you have done this to us, done this to
 
her
 
!” He spat. “There was a day whenthe man who seduced a Keeper would be torn on hooks, and the Keeper who violated her oath—” Hecould not continue. He was too angry. “And so history repeats itself—Cleindori and this filth of a Terran!”

“You said it yourself,” Elorie cried out in torment. “You said that any mechanic could do a Keeper’s

work, that a Keeper was an anachronism, that Cleindori was right!”

“What I believe, and what we can do at Arilinn, are two different things,” he spat at her, contemptuously. “I had not believed you were such a fool! Nor did I think you weak enough to go whoring after this handsome Terran who has seduced us all with his charming ways! Yes, I too was charmed by him—and he used this, damn him, he used it to break the Tower!” Rannirl swore, turned his back on them.

“Dirty bitch,” Neyrissa said, and raised her hand to slap Elorie. “No better than that dirty old man, our

father, whose filthy lecheries—

Kennard moved swiftly to grab Neyrissa’s hand in midair. “What? Lay a hand on your Keeper?”

“She has forfeited that,” said Neyrissa, curling up her lip in contempt.

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Auster said, staring somberly at them, “In days past, it would have been death for you, Elorie—anddeath by torture for
 
him
 
.”

In shock and dismay Kerwin realized the mistake they were all making; for Elorie was clinging to him,white and terrified, her face hidden against his breast. He stepped forward quickly, to deny theaccusation, to reaffirm Elorie’s innocence. The words were already on his lips:
 
I swear that she hasbeen sacred to me, that her chastity is untouched
 
—

But Elorie flung back her head, white and defiant. “Call me what you will, Neyrissa,” she said. “All ofyou; it’s no use. I have renounced Arilinn; I proclaim myself unfit to be Keeper by Arilinn’s laws—Sheturned then to Kerwin, sobbing bitterly, and flung her arms around him again, hiding her face on hisbreast. The words still unspoken—
 
This is only an innocent girl’s fantasy. I have not betrayed her,

or you
—died forever on his lips. He could not rebuff or repudiate her now; not as he saw the shock and disbelief on their faces changing to revulsion and disgust. She was clinging helplessly, holding herself to him with desperate force, her whole body shaken with her weeping.

Deliberately, accepting, he bowed his head and faced them, his arms sheltering Elorie.

“They should die for this!” Auster cried.

Rannirl shrugged. “What’s the use? They’ve sabotaged everything we tried to do, everything we’veaccomplished. Nothing we could do now would make any difference. Wish them joy of it!” He turned hisback on them and walked out.

Auster and Corus followed; Kennard lingered a moment, his face lined and miserable with despair. “Oh, Elorie, Elorie,” he said in a whisper, “if you had only come to me, warned me in time—” and Kerwinknew that he was not speaking to Elorie, but to a memory. But she did not raise her head from Jeff’sbreast and after a time Kennard sighed, shaking his head, and went away.

Stunned, still shaken by the force of her lie, Kerwin heard the door closing behind them. Elorie hadquieted a little; now she began to weep again, brokenly, like a child; Kerwin held her in his arms, notunderstanding.

“Elorie, Elorie,” he entreated. “Why did you do it? Why did you lie to them?”

Sobbing and laughing at once, hysterical, Elorie leaned back to look at him. “But it wasn’t a lie,” shesobbed. “I couldn’t have lied to them again! It was my being Keeper that had become a lie, ever since Itouched you—oh, I know you would never have touched me, because of the law, because of the taboo,and yet when I spoke to them they knew I was telling the truth! Because I had come to want you so, tolove you so, I couldn’t have endured it, to turn myself into a robot again, a machine, a dead-aliveautomation as I did before— ” Her sobbing almost drowned out the words. “I knew I could neverendure it again, to go on being Keeper—and when you went away, I thought at first without you there Icould perhaps go back to being what I was, but there was nothing, nothing any more in my world, and Iknew that if I never saw you again, I would be more dead than alive—”

“Oh, Elorie! Oh, God, Elorie!” he whispered, overwhelmed.

“So now you have lost everything—and you’re not even free,” she said wildly. “But I have nothing, no

one else, if you do not want me, I have nothing, nothing—”

Kerwin picked her up in his arms like a child, cradling her close to him. He was awed at the immensity

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of her trust; shaken and dismayed at what she had given up for him. He kissed her wet face; laid her

down on the tumbled bed and knelt at her side.

“Elorie,” he said, and the words were a prayer and a pledge, “I don’t care if I have lost everything else,

now that I have you. My only regret in leaving Arilinn was because I thought I was leaving you.”

The words were not true and he knew as he spoke them that they were not true, and he knew that Elorie knew. Yet the only thing that mattered now was to reassure Elorie with a deeper truth. “I love you, Elorie,” he whispered, and that at least was true. “I will never let you go.” He leaned forward, kissing heron the lips, and gathered her childish body again into his arms.

Chapter Fourteen: Doorway to the Past

«^»

Thendara, in the dying light, was a mass of black towers and shapes; the Terran HQ below them was asingle brightly lighted spike against the sky. Jeff pointed it out to Elorie through the window of the Terranairliner.

“It may not be very beautiful to you now, my darling. But somewhere I’ll find a world to give you.”

She leaned against his shoulder. “I have all the world I want.”

The seat-belt sign flashed, and he helped her to buckle her straps; she put her hands over her ears,hating the noise, and he put his arm around her, holding her tight.

The last three days had been days of joy and discovery for both of them, even through their sharedsense of being outcaste, driven from the only home either of them had ever wanted. Neither spoke ofthis; they had too much else to share with one another.

He had never known a woman like Elorie. Once he had thought her aloof, passionless; then he hadcome to see that calm as a deep-seated control, not as absence of passion.

She had come to him, frightened, desolate, innocent almost to ignorance, and terrified. And she hadgiven him her fear as she had given the rest of herself, without pretense and without shame. That uttertrust frightened Kerwin, too—how could he ever be worthy of it? But it was typical of Elorie that shecould do nothing by halves or meanly; as Keeper she had kept herself clear even from the fringes ofpassion; even in imagination, she had never thought of love. And having discarded that place, she hadgiven herself over to Jeff with all of her long-controlled passion and dedication.

Once he had said something of this to her; his surprise, his fear that she would be frightened or frigid, hisoverwhelming surprise and delight at her response to his passion. Somehow he had believed that awoman who could live the life of a Keeper would be cold at the core, without passion or desire.

She had laughed aloud, shaking her head. “No,” she said. “Kennard explained this once to me; outsiderswould think that a passionless woman, who would not suffer in living alone and loveless, would be rightfor a Keeper. But anyone who knew anything of
laran
 
would know better.
 
Laran
 
and sexuality arisefrom the same place within, and are closely akin, and a woman who could be keeper without sufferingwould not have enough
 
laran
 
to be a Keeper, or anything else!”

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Now, as they landed, she drew her cloak over her bright hair; he held her arm on the hard and unfamiliarmetal steps. He must seem resolute for her sake, even if he was not. “I know it is strange to you, darling. But it won’t be strange for long.”

“No place will be strange to me where you are,” she said valiantly. “But—but will they allow this? They

won’t—won’t separate us?”

On that he could reassure her. “I may be Darkovan under your laws,” he said, “but I have Terrancitizenship and they cannot deny me that. And any woman who legally marries a citizen of the Empire isautomatically given citizenship.” He remembered the bored, incurious clerk in the Trade City at Port

Chicago who had married them three days ago. Port Chicago was beyond the Domains; the clerk hadglanced briefly at Jeff’s identity disk, heard Elorie give her name as “Elorie Ardais” without a ripple ofinterest; probably he had never heard of the Comyn, or of the Arilinn Tower. He brought in a woman inhis office to witness the marriage; she had been chirpy and friendly, saying to Elorie that with their twored heads they should have quite a crop of redheaded children. Elorie had blushed, and Kerwin had felt agreat and unexpected tenderness. The thought of a child of Elorie’s touched him in a way he had notthought he could be moved.