bibliogramma | Marion Zimmer Bradley: The Spell Sword (Reply)

The Spell Sword (pub. 1974), tells the story of the beginning of the Forbidden Tower, introducing Ellemir and Callista Alton, Damon Ridenow, and Terran Andrew Carr. It begins when Carr, on a four-day layover at Thendara spaceport, goes out into the Trade City for some fun and patronises a "fortuneteller." In her "crystal ball" - probably a matrix - he sees a vision of a young woman which so captivates him that he immediately applies for a permanent posting on Darkover. Following a crash in the Hellers, while on a Mapping and Exploration Survey flight, he is contacted telepathically by Callista, the woman whose image he saw. She is being held captive - where and by whom she does not know, but she is able to help him to survive the storms of the Hellers reach safety at Armida, the house seat of the Altons. Meanwhile, Callista's twin sister Ellemir has called for help from their Tower-trained kinsman Damon after Callista's abduction while on a visit home from Arilinn Tower, where she is UnderKeeper to Leonie Hastur. Damon, having survived an attack by the catmen, sentient non-humans native to Darkover, deduces from the details of the raid on Armida that the catmen have not only abducted Callista and somehow blocked her from contacting them, but are also responsible for a strange blight in the nearby region of Corresanti. When Andrew arrives, his story, once told and accepted as true, fills in the remaining blanks.

Immediate rescue is out of the question, as there are few men-at-arms at Armida and Damon is not a warrior. While they wait for the arrival of Ellemir and Callista's father, the powerful Dom Esteban Alton, the telepathic rapport brought on by their searching for Callista and their attempts to train Andrew's latent laran to the point where he can help them find Callista has led to a deep emotional contact between all three of them, but particularly Damon and Ellemir. Meanwhile, Callista's total reliance on Andrew for any shred of human contact seems to be wearing down the barriers she built as Keeper, and Andrew is falling in love with her.

All seems lost when Dom Esteban is ambushed on his way home by the catmen and severely injured, leaving him paralysed from the waist down. However, Dom Esteban has the Alton gift of forced rapport, and he is able to use this gift to control Damon's reflexes, giving the younger man all the skill and experience of an expert swordsman. With Damon now able to lead Esteban's guardsmen, and Andrew's connection to guide them, Callista is rescued and the leader of the catmen, who has been using a huge unmonitored matrix left over from pre-Compact days, is defeated and the immediate menace ended.

The Spell Sword is a relatively short and plot-focused novel, but like most of MZB's novels, it explores aspects of relationships, sexuality, and gender roles. One theme that runs through much of MZB's Darkover writing is the intense nature of communication between telepaths, and how closely linked it can be to love and sexual desire. Both Andrew and Damon have been reluctant to enter into serious relationships, Andrew because every contact her has had, has seemed somehow lacking in something important, and Damon because he has been fixated on Leonie for years, at least in part because of the close rapport they had when he was a matrix worker at Arillan. Telepathic contact between Callista and Andrew, and between Ellemir and Damon, is enough to create an intense emotional and sexual bond in a matter of days, if not hours.

Interestingly, we see indications that while young Darkovan women are generally treated as though they were untouchable - Damon has to caution Andrew that on Darkover, men do not look directly at young women who are not their kin - this may be more appearance than fact. We have seen that women in the Towers, with the exception of Keepers, enjoy sexual autonomy. It must be assumed that if a woman who has worked in a Tower decides to retire and marry, the possibility of her bearing children with laran outweighs and issues of a possible lack of virginity. But when Damon begins to think of Ellemir as a lover, it is clear that he does not expect her to be virgin.

So young, Ellemir was not. She was old enough to care for this vast Domain when her kinsmen were away at Comyn Council. She must be nearly twenty years old. Old enough to have a lover; old enough, if she chose, to marry. She was Comynara in her own right, and her own mistress.

It may be that Damon's Tower experience has made him less insistent on sexual purity in a potential bride; certainly there are other passages and incidents in the Darkover novels that indicate that a woman who has been raped or who has been sexually involved with a man of a lower social status is often seen as defiled and disgraced. On the other hand, it also appears that a woman who becomes mistress or concubine to a man of higher rank is not, as long as he openly acknowledges her and any children she may have with him.

We also see confirmation of the tradition of group marriage and polyamory that dates from the very beginnings of Darkovan history - at one point Ellemir says "when she [Callista] went to the Tower, and was pledged, I knew we could never, as so many sisters do, share a lover, or husband."

The necessity for the absolute virginity of a Keeper is mentioned several times - an interesting irony since it is these four people, and later the child of one of them, who will prove that such virginity is not necessary at all. Damon tries to explain the tradition of total chastity among Keepers to Andrew:

... it's a matter of nerve energies. People have only so much. You learn to protect your energy currents, how to use them most effectively, how to relax, to safeguard your strength. Well, what uses most human energy? Sex, of course. You can use it, sometimes, to channel energy, but there are limits to that sort of thing. And when you're keyed into the matrix jewels—well, the energy they will carry is limitless, but human flesh and blood and brainwaves can stand only so much. For a man it's fairly simple. You can't overload with sex because if you're too heavily overloaded, you simply can't function sexually at all. Matrix telepaths find that out fairly early in the game. You have to go on short rations of sex if you want to keep enough energy to do your work. For a woman, though, it's easy to, well, to overload. So most of the women have to make up their minds to stay chaste, or else be very, very careful not to key into the more complex matrix patterns. Because it can kill them, very quickly, and it's not a nice death.”

However, the combination of powerful laran and the sensitivity to mesh completely with others that makes a woman so valuable and revered as a Keeper seems to be a liability for a man. Damon suffers from insecurity and concerns about his masculinity so severe that it actually keeps him from being able to allow himself competence in masculine areas such as weapons training because he has been told by Leonie that he could have been a Keeper had he been a woman.

... you are too sensitive, you cannot barricade yourself. Had you been born a woman, in a woman's body,” she added, laying a light hand on his shoulder, “you would have been a Keeper, perhaps one of the greatest. But as a man," faintly, she shrugged—“you would destroy yourself, tear yourself apart. Perhaps, free of the Tower, you may be able to surround yourself with other things, grow less sensitive, less”—she hesitated, groping for the exact word—“less vulnerable. It is for your own good that I send you away, Damon; for your health, for your happiness, perhaps for your very sanity."

This underscores the occasional glimpses seen in this and other of the Darkover novels of a certain degree of contempt shown by Comyn men who have devoted themselves to the Guard or have gained some recognition for weapons skill toward men working in the Towers or lacking inclination or skill to be trained fighters. It is clear that the strict imposition of gender roles impacts men as well as eomen in Darkovan society.