The wedding procession was coming, curving around through the forest and starting up the path that led up the eastern slope of the Tor. Tiriki glimpsed their bright robes through the trees as the chime of bells was carried through the wind. Carefully, Chedan lit a waxed splinter from the lamp and thrust it into the kindling laid on the altar stone.
The wind whipped the spark into flame and fluttered the draperies of the priests and priestesses who waited within the circle of stones. The weight of necklet and diadem felt strange to Tiriki, who for so long had worn no ornament at all, and the silken draperies oddly smooth to one who had become accustomed to leather and coarse wool.
I will remember, thought Tiriki as the wedding party crested the rim of the hill, but I will not weep. I will cast no shadow on Selast and Kalaran’s day.
Tiriki and Micail had been married in the temple that crowned the Star Mountain—the most sacred precinct of Ahtarrath. Their union was witnessed by Deoris and Reio-ta and the senior clergy of the Temple, and blessed by the old Guardian Rajasta in one of the last rites he had performed before he died.
Now it was Chedan who stood to welcome the bridal pair with the sacred symbols that adorned his tabard gleaming in the sun. Instead of the Star Mountain, their temple was this rough circle of stones atop the Tor. But though this sanctuary in the marsh lacked Ahtarrath’s majesty, Tiriki had learned enough in the past five years to suspect it might be a match in power.
Micail had been resplendent in white, the band of gold across his brow no brighter than his hair, and she had for the first time donned the blue robe and fillet of Caratra, though she herself had been little more than a child. Did I seek to begin bearing too young? she wondered then. Was that why I could never birth a living child? Until we came here, she added as Kestil and Domara came dancing ahead of the procession, strewing the path with flowers. But Selast had reached her twentieth year, and life in this wilderness had made her healthy and strong. Her babes would thrive.
Domara emptied her basket of flowers and came running to her mother’s side. Tiriki gathered her up gratefully, delighting in the child’s warm weight and the wildflower scent of her red hair. Micail is lost to me, but in his daughter, a part of him lives still . . .
Her preoccupation had kept her from hearing Chedan’s words of welcome. She had been so excited at her own wedding, so completely focused on Micail, that she had scarcely heard them that first time, either. Already the mage was binding Kalaran’s right wrist to Selast’s left and passing them, still linked, over the flickering flame. Then, still bound together, the couple processed sunwise around the altar stone.
Chedan led them through the formal oaths in which they promised to bring up their children in the service of Light, and act as priest and priestess to each other. There were no words of love, Tiriki noticed now, but for herself and Micail the love had been there already.
The stars themselves foretold our union! her heart cried, released by the stress of the moment from the control that had enabled her to survive. So why were we torn apart so soon?
Kalaran’s voice wavered, but Selast’s responses were loud and firm. They had respect for each other, and perhaps in time the love would grow. As the lengthy oaths were finished, Chedan lifted his hands in benediction and faced them across the fire.
“To this woman and this man grant wisdom and courage, O Great Unknown! Grant them peace and understanding! Grant purity of purpose and true knowledge to the two souls who stand here before you. Give unto them growth according to their needs, and the fortitude to do their duty in the fullest measure. O Thou Who Art, both female and male and more than either, let these two live in Thee, and for Thee.”
This part, Tiriki remembered. Bound wrist to wrist, she had felt Micail’s warmth as her own, and in the invocation, something further, a third essence that enfolded them both in a power that united them even as it transcended. She could sense that sphere of energy now, even though she stood on its fringes, aware for a moment not only of the link between Selast and Kalaran, but of the web of energy that connected everyone in the circle, and beyond that, the land around them, resonating into realms she now knew existed within and beyond it, but could not see.
“O Thou Who Art,” Tiriki’s heart cried, still thinking of Micail. “Let us all live in Thee!”
It was strange, thought Chedan as he set down the deer rib he had been gnawing, how scarcity changed one’s attitude to food. Watching Tiriki and the others tuck into the feast which the folk of the Lake village had created to honor the newlyweds, he remembered how, in the Ancient Land, the priesthood had seen food as a distraction from the cultivation of the soul. But in the Sea Kingdoms, whatever land and sea might lack, the trading ships could supply. In Alkonath, not so many years ago, Chedan had been on the verge of becoming portly. He could count his own ribs now.
There had been times, particularly during the winter months when the only thing left to eat was millet gruel, when Chedan had wondered why he fought so hard to keep the body alive. But even the Temple had recognized that the pleasures of the table and the marriage bed helped reconcile men to incarnation in physical bodies, whose lessons were necessary to the evolution of the soul. And so he chewed slowly, savoring the interplay of salt and fat and the flavors of the herbs with which the roast had been rubbed, and the juicy red meat of the deer.
“That was a beautiful ceremony,” Liala commented. “And the power in the Tor is—even more than we had thought. Is it not?” She had been ill for much of the spring, but she had refused to miss this celebration.
“I suppose someone must have known that, even here, because they built the circle of stones to focus the power,” observed Rendano, who was sitting on the other side of the table. He frowned as if doubting that these primitives could manage such a feat.
“We are not the first of our kind to come here,” said Alyssa in a flat voice. “The Temple of the Sun that stood beside the river Naradek on the coast of this land is in ruins now, but the wisewoman of these people is an initiate of sorts.”
“Of sorts!” Rendano said disdainfully. “Is that all we will leave behind us? What will her children know of the greatness of Atlantis?” He gestured toward Selast, who was attempting to feed a piece of bannock to a laughing Kalaran.
“Atlantis is lost,” Chedan said quietly, “but the Mysteries remain. There is much for us to do here.”
“Yes . . . Do you remember the maze below the temple on the Star Mountain?” Tiriki asked then. “Was it not intended to teach the way to pass between the worlds?”
“Only in legends,” Rendano scoffed. “Such devices are a training for the soul.”
“That night when Iriel was lost . . .” She struggled to find the right words. “I walked the maze in the heart of the hill and came to a place that was not this world.”
“You wandered in the spirit while you slept on the mountainside,” Rendano said with a thin smile.
“No, I believe her,” objected Liala. “I followed her into the passage made by the waters of the White Spring and went back to the entrance to wait for her when my hip pained me. She did not emerge that way, and we found her on top of the Tor.”
“Then there was another exit—”
“The acolytes have scoured that hill by daylight and found none,” observed Chedan. “I have myself explored the passage to the spring, without finding the tunnel—I believe it is there, though I find no rationale for it.
“You have spoken much with Taret, lately . . .” Chedan turned to Alyssa. “What does she say?” Washed, combed, and dressed in her ceremonial garments, the seeress seemed to have recovered some degree of mental and emotional stability. They might as well take advantage of her fleeting moments of clarity.
“Much that I may not tell,” answered Alyssa with a smile that reminded them of the woman they had known in Ahtarrath. “But I have seen—” Her voice wavered, and Liala put out a hand to steady her. “I have seen a crystal hill with the pattern of the maze gleaming with light.??
? She shuddered and looked around as if wondering what she was doing there.
Liala cast an accusing glance at Chedan and then handed Alyssa an earthen mug of water.
“Thank you, Alyssa,” Tiriki said softly, patting her shoulder. “That is what I was trying to say.” She turned to the others. “Perhaps it was some rare conjunction of the stars that opened the way, or perhaps it was only meant for me. But I wonder—if we were to cut the pattern of the maze upon the outside of the hill, somehow I feel—that we might learn how to reach the Otherworld by walking it. And who knows what we might learn then?”
“Fancies and notions,” Rendano muttered, not so softly.
But Chedan frowned thoughtfully. “For so long, our work here has been directed toward mere survival. Is it time now to build on that foundation, to gather our singers together and create something new?”
“Do you mean we should raise stones and build a great city around the Tor? I do not think the marsh folk would be very comfortable there . . .” Liala said dubiously.
“No,” Chedan murmured. “Cities arise for a reason. I think this place will never be able to support such a population, nor should it. I am beginning to glimpse something different. Perhaps . . . Let us begin by simply tracing the maze upon the surface of the hill and learning to walk that spiral path . . . I think that what we have been granted is an opportunity to create in this place the kind of spiritual harmony that once existed on the Star Mountain.”
“A new Temple?” asked Rendano doubtfully.
“Yes, but it will be unlike anything that has gone before.”
“Young Otter is a furry snake—
Ai, ya, ai ya ya!
What a hunter he will make,
Ai, ya, ya . . .”
A dozen voices joined in as Otter rose from his bench and gyrated around the circle, pretending to pounce on one or another feaster as he passed.
In honor of the wedding, the marsh folk had brewed a quantity of something they called heather beer. It was only moderately alcoholic, but as the Atlanteans usually abstained from alcohol, and the natives drank only at festivals, even a little went a long way. Though she had at first grimaced at the mix of herbal flavors only slightly lightened by a hint of honey, Damisa had progressed to an expansive enjoyment that kept her going back to the skin that hung from the oak tree for more. After cup number four she had stopped counting.
“Elis digging in the mud—
Ai ya, ai, ya, ya!
Tell us if you find some food!
Ai, ya, ya . . .”
She noted without surprise that the singers had run out of villagers to tease and were starting on the Atlanteans. Such foolishness would never have been tolerated at home. Nor would there have been so public a celebration after a mere wedding. It was a measure of the degree to which the new and the old inhabitants of the Tor had become one community that the villagers had offered to prepare a feast for the newlyweds in the broad meadow by the shore. Tiriki and Chedan had accepted only after some serious debate with the others. In Atlantis, the matings of the priestly class had been occasions of high ceremony, not of bad jokes and strong drink.
But why should I care? Damisa asked herself as the buzz in her ears grew louder. Neither by the old custom nor the new will there be a mate for me . . .
“Liala in your gown of blue—
Ai ya, ai ya, ya!
Won’t you tell us what to do?
Ai, ya, ya . . .”
The game required that the person being “honored” get up and dance around the circle. Liala, her cheeks flushed and her eyes bright, made a slow circle and then, to the accompaniment of enthusiastic cheering, bestowed a hearty kiss on the leader of the singers, a grey-bearded elder who was the closest thing the villagers had to a bard.
“Selast, like the wind you run—
Ai, ya, ai ya, ya!
Won’t you stop and have some fun?
Ai, ya, ya . . .”
Not anymore . . . thought Damisa, glumly. She’ll be hobbled now, at Kalaran’s beck and call . . .
The brilliance of the long summer’s day was softening now to a luminous twilight. Treetops edged the clearing with an interlace of branches, black against the shell pink of the western sky, but eastward, the long slope of the Tor still caught the light. For a moment it seemed to Damisa that the glow came from within. Or perhaps it was only the drink, she told herself then, for when she blinked and looked again, all she could see was a dim bulk above the trees.
“Kalaran taught us how to row—
Ai ya, ai ya, ya!
Teach him how to tup his doe!
Ai, ya, ya . . .”
Someone called out in the marsh folk tongue and was answered by cheers and laughter. It took Damisa a few moments to realize they were calling for volunteers to escort the bridal couple to their bedding. She allowed herself one look at her beloved. Selast’s flower crown was askew, her eyes bright with mingled excitement and apprehension.
“Go with your husband . . .” she muttered, lifting her cup in ironic salutation, “and when you lie in his arms, may you wish that you were still in mine.”
The escort returned and the dancing started up once more. Reidel had taken over one of the drums. His teeth flashed white in his dark face as he grinned, his fingers flickering above the taut skin. She observed a little resentfully that he seemed to be having a good time. Some of the sailors whirled by hand in hand with village girls. Iriel was sitting with Elis on a log at the edge of the clearing. Otter stood by them, and as Damisa watched, Iriel laughed at something he said and allowed him to lead her into the dance.
As Damisa got up to refill her cup, she encountered Tiriki, who was getting ready to leave the celebration, holding a sleepy Domara by the hand. Chedan and the other senior clergy had already gone.
“It is well past her bedtime,” said Tiriki with a smile, “but she did want to see the dancing.”
“It certainly is different from the way we celebrated things in the Temple,” Damisa answered sourly, remembering the exquisitely prepared meals and the stately dances.
“But you can see why. Survival is so uncertain here. It’s no wonder that when people have food and fire in abundance they revel in it. It’s an affirmation of life for them, and for us, as well. But now it’s time for sleep, isn’t it, my darling?” Tiriki added as Domara yawned. “Will you walk with us back to the Tor?”
Damisa shook her head. “I’m not ready to seek my bed.”
Tiriki eyed the cup in Damisa’s hand and frowned, as if considering whether or not to exert her authority. “Don’t stay here and brood. I know that you and Selast were close, but—”
“But it is possible to live unmated, you would say? Like you?” Even as Damisa spoke she knew the beer had betrayed her.
Tiriki straightened, eyes flashing, and Damisa took an involuntary step backward.
“Like me?” Tiriki spoke with quiet intensity. “Pray to the gods that you never know the joy I had, lest you also one day feel my pain.” She turned abruptly and strode away, leaving Damisa staring stupidly.
Events after that became a little hazy. At one point she looked up to see Otter and Iriel heading for the bushes, arms entwined. She got to her feet, blinking. Only a few people were left beside the fire. Reidel was one of them.
“My lady, are you well?” He came quickly toward her. “Can I help you back to the House of Maidens?”
“Well? Very well . . .” Damisa giggled and steadied herself against his shoulder. He smelled of heather beer and sweat. “But I’m . . . a little drunk.” She hiccuped and laughed again. “P’raps we’d better wait . . . a while.”
“Walking will help,” he said firmly, tucking her arm in his. “We’ll take the path that circles the Tor.”
Damisa was not entirely sure that she wanted to lose the warm buzz of the beer. But she had noticed before that Reidel’s arm was strong and comforting. Holding on to him did make her feel better, and when they sat down to rest on a grassy bank with a vi
ew of moonlight on the water, it seemed natural to rest her head against his shoulder. Gradually her dizziness began to ease.
It took a little while for her to notice that fine tremors were shaking the hard muscle beneath her cheek. She straightened, shaking her head.
“You are trembling—are you cold, or was I too heavy for you?”
“No . . .” His voice, too, seemed strained. “Never. I was foolish to think I could . . . that you would not know . . .”
“Know what?”
He released her abruptly and turned away, his body a dark shape against the stars. “How hard it is for me to hold you and do no more . . .”
That heather beer has loosened your control too, she thought then, or you would not dare to say so! But why should she deny him, she wondered then, since Selast was lost to her?
“Then do it—” she said, grasping his arm and drawing him back to face her.
Reidel came closer in a single smooth movement that took her by surprise, one arm tightening around her waist while the other lifted to tangle in her hair. In another moment he had pulled her against him and his lips sought hers, at first tentative, then hard as her own need responded to his. The stars whirled overhead as he bore her down upon the grass, his hands first questioning, then demanding, as lacings and pins gave way.
Her breath came faster as a slow fire that owed nothing to the heather beer began to burn beneath her skin. In those moments when his lips were not otherwise busied, Reidel’s voice was a whispered accompaniment of wonder and adoration.
This is not right, thought Damisa in a moment of clear thought as he released her in order to pull off his tunic. I am only driven by lust, and he by love . . .
But then Reidel rolled back and his wandering hand found the sanctuary between her thighs. Desire descended upon Damisa like the coming of a goddess, melting all her thoughts of restraint, and she welcomed his hard strength as his body covered hers.