Читать книгу Ancestors of Avalon - Marion Zimmer Bradley - Страница 10

How does one pack a life?

Micail looked down at the confusion of items piled upon his couch and shook his head. It seemed a sad little assortment in the early morning light. Three parts need to one part nostalgia?

Every ship, of course, would be provisioned with practical items such as bedding and seeds and medicines. Meanwhile, the acolytes and a few trusted chelas had been given the task of packing scrolls and regalia, using lists the Temple had prepared long ago. But those items, really, were all for public use. It was left to each passenger to choose as many personal belongings as would fit into a sack to go with him or her across the sea.

He had done this once before, when he was twelve, leaving the Ancient Land where he had been born to come to this island that was his heritage. Then he had left his boyhood behind.

Well, I will no longer need to lead processions up the Star Mountain. For a moment longer, he examined the ceremonial mantle, beautifully embroidered with a web of spirals and comets…With the merest twinge of regret, he cast it aside and began to fold a pair of plain linen tunics. The only mantle of office he packed was one woven of white silk, so fine that it was luminous, and the blue mantle that went with it. With the ornaments of his priesthood, it would suffice for ritual work. And without a country I will no longer be a prince. Would that be a relief, he wondered, or would he miss the respect that his title brought him?

The symbol is nothing, he reminded himself; the reality is everything. A true adept should be able to carry on without any regalia. ‘The most important tool of the mage is here,’ old Rajasta used to say, tapping his brow with a smile. For a moment Micail felt as if he were back in the House of the Twelve in the Ancient Land. I miss Rajasta sorely, thought Micail, but I am glad he did not live to see this day.

His gaze drifted to the miniature feather tree in its decorous pot on the windowsill, pale green foliage gleaming in the morning sun. It had been a gift from his mother, Domaris, not long after he had arrived on Ahtarrath, and since then he had watered it, pruned it, cared for it…As he picked it up he heard Tiriki’s light step in the hall.

‘My darling, are you really planning to take that little tree?’

‘I…don’t know.’ Micail returned the pot to the window and turned to Tiriki with a smile. ‘It seems a pity to abandon it after I have watched over it for so long.’

‘It will not survive in your sack,’ she observed, coming into his arms.

‘That’s so, but there might be room for it somewhere. If deciding whether to bring a little tree is my hardest choice…’ The words died in his throat.

Tiriki raised her head, her eyes seeking his and following his gaze to the window. The delicate leaflets of the little tree trembled, quivering, though there was no wind.

Sensed, rather than heard, the subsonic groaning below and all around them became a vibration felt in the soles of their feet, more powerful by far than the tremor they had felt the day before.

Not again! Micail thought, pleading, not yet, not now…

From the mountain’s summit, a trail of smoke rose to stain the pale sky.

The floor rolled. He grabbed Tiriki and pulled her toward the door. Braced beneath its frame, they would have some protection if the ceiling fell. Their eyes locked again, and without need of words, they synchronized their breathing, moving into the focused detachment of trance. Each breath took them deeper. Linked, they were both more aware of the unraveling stresses within the earth, and less vulnerable to them.

‘Powers of Earth be still!’ he cried, drawing on the full authority of his heritage. ‘I, Son of Ahtarrath, Royal Hunter, Heir-to-the-Word-of-Thunder, command you! Be at peace!’

From the empty sky came thunder, echoed by a rumble that sounded far away. Tiriki and Micail could hear the tumult and outcry in the palace and the sounds of things crashing and breaking everywhere.

The shaking finally ceased, but the tension did not. Through the window, Micail could see that the Star Mountain’s summit was gone – no, not gone, displaced. Smoke, or dust, rose all about the distinctive little pyramid as, still lighted, it slid slowly toward the city.

Micail closed his eyes tight and reached beyond himself again as a roiling onslaught of energies whipped through him. He tried to visualize the layers of rock that made up the island, but the restraining vision only flickered and shifted, until finally it became the image of the crossed arms of the faceless man, bound and chained but stirring, that had haunted their dreams. His muscles flexed and links popped as the man strained against his bonds.

‘Who are you? WHAT DOES THIS MEAN?’ He did not realize he had been shouting until he felt Tiriki’s thoughts within his own.

‘It is – the Unrevealed!’ came her mental cry. ‘Dyaus! Do not look at his eyes!’

At this, the vision rose, snarling. The floor shook anew, more roughly than before, and would not stop. Micail had grown up with the whispered tales of the god Dyaus, invoked to bring change by Grey Mages of the Ancient Land. Instead, he had brought chaos whose reverberations had eventually destroyed that land and now seemed about to destroy Atlantis as well. But he had never been to the crypt where that image was chained.

‘I cannot hold him! Help me!’

At once Micail felt Tiriki’s unflinching rush of compassion.

‘Let Light balance Darkness—’ Her thought became a song.

‘And Reaction, Rest—’ he followed.

‘Let Love balance Hatred—’ Warmth built between their clasped hands.

‘The Male, the Female—’ Light grew between them, generating power to transform the tensions of the opposing forces.

‘There is Light – There is Form

There is Shadow and Illusion

and Proportion—’

It seemed a long time that they stood so, while the vacant howling of the chained god receded, gradually, grudgingly, sullenly.

When the shaking ceased at last, Micail drew a deep breath of relief, although his sensitized awareness felt the constant tremors beneath the equilibrium they had imposed upon the island.

‘It’s over.’ Tiriki opened her eyes with a sigh.

‘No,’ he said heavily, ‘only restrained, for a little while. Beloved—’ Words failed him, and he clasped her more tightly. ‘I could not have held back that power alone.’

‘Do we have – time?’

‘Ask the gods,’ Micail replied. ‘But at least no one will doubt our warning now.’ He looked past her, his shoulders slumping as he saw on the floor beneath the window the shattered pot, spilled earth, and naked roots of his little feather tree.

People died in that quake, he told himself. The city is burning. This is no time to weep over a tree. But as he shoved his spare sandals into the bag, his eyes burned with tears.

The mood of the city had certainly altered, thought Damisa as she picked her way around a pile of rubble and continued toward the harbor. After the terror of the early morning, the bright sunlight seemed a mockery. The smoke from a dozen burning buildings had turned the light a strange, rich gold. Now and again, a vibration in the earth reminded her that though the dust from its toppled summit had dispersed, the Star Mountain was still wakeful.

The taverns were doing a roaring business, selling wine to those who preferred to drown their fear rather than take steps to save themselves from the sea, but otherwise the marketplace looked deserted. A few insisted that the morning’s quake would be the last, but most people were at home, packing valuables to take on the ship or into the countryside. From the roof of the House of the Twelve, Damisa had seen the roads jammed with wagons. People were heading for the harbors or the inland hills, or anywhere away from the Star Mountain, whose crowning pyramid had come to a precarious stop about halfway down the slope. From the new, flattened summit, a plume of smoke continued to rise, a constant promise of more violence to come.

And to think that there had been moments when she had resisted the Temple’s orderly serenity, its incessant imposition of patience and discipline. If this morning was a taste of what was coming, she suspected she would soon be remembering her life here as a paradise.

In the emergency, even the twelve acolytes had been pressed into service as common messengers. Damisa had claimed the note meant for Prince Tjalan, and she meant to deliver it. Determined, she tiptoed around a pool of noxious liquids spilling from a market, and she headed down a reeking alley to the waterfront.

The harbor yards were crowded and noisy as on any normal day, but now there was a barely restrained hysteria. She tugged her veil into place, and hastened her steps into the hubbub. She heard the drawling accents of Alkonath everywhere she turned. It must have been some kind of instinct that allowed her to distinguish Tjalan’s voice, ringing above the babble of men who toiled to stow a hundred different kinds of gear.

As she drew nearer, she heard the sailor to whom the prince was speaking. ‘What does it matter if the seed grain goes above or below the bales of cloth?’

‘Do you eat cloth?’ Tjalan asked sharply. ‘Wet linen will dry, but salt-soaked barley will mold, not grow. So get back down there, man, and do it right this time!’

Damisa was relieved to see the prince’s expression lighten as he recognized her.

‘My dear – how goes it up there?’ A wave of his hand indicated the temples and the palace on the hill.

‘How is it everywhere?’ Damisa tried to keep her voice even, but had to look away. ‘Oh!’ she brightened. ‘But there is good news! The priests who serve at the summit of the Star Mountain actually survived! They came in an hour ago, all except their leader. He sends word that he dwelled on that peak since he was a boy, so if the mountain wishes to be rid of the pyramid, he will return to the summit without it.’

Tjalan laughed. ‘I have known men like him – “deep in the Mercy of the Gods,” as they say. He may outlast all of us!’

‘There are some,’ she found herself saying, ‘who believe that when the earth began to shake, we should have made…a special offering…’

Tjalan blinked, brows furrowing. ‘Sweet child – do not even think such things!’ His bronzed face had gone taut and pale. ‘We are not barbarians who sacrifice children! The gods would be right to destroy us if we were!’

‘But they are destroying us,’ she muttered, unable to tear her gaze from the flattened, smoking peak.

‘They are certainly unmaking the islands,’ Tjalan corrected gently. ‘But they granted us warning first, did they not – first by the prophecies and now by the tremors? We were given time to prepare an escape—’ His gesture embraced the ships, the people, the boxes, bags, and barrels of provisions. ‘Even the gods cannot do everything for us!’

He is as wise as any priest. Damisa admired the strength in his profile as he turned to answer a question from the captain, a man called Dantu. I can be proud to be kin to such a man, she thought, and not for the first time. She had not originally been destined for the Temple – it was her grandmother who proposed her as a candidate for the Twelve. When she had dreamed of a royal marriage as a little girl, Tjalan had been her model for a worthy consort. It was a relief to find that a more mature judgment justified her original opinion. He made Kalhan look like the boy he was!

‘Mind yourselves!’ The prince was glaring at a group of sailors who stopped work to goggle at two buxom, saffron-draped saji girls who were pulling a cart full of parcels from the Temple of Caratra.

One of the men smacked his lips and made a kissing noise at the girls, who giggled behind their veils. ‘Wouldn’ mind packing you into my hold…’

‘You there!’ Tjalan repeated, ‘back to work. They’re not for such as you!’

What the sajis were for had been the subject of much wild-eyed speculation among the acolytes. In the old days, it was said, sajis had been trained to assist in certain kinds of magic that involved the sexual energies. Damisa shuddered, glad that she had not experience enough to guess what those might be. The acolytes were free to take lovers before they married, but she had been too fastidious to do so, and Kalhan, chosen as her betrothed by some arcane procedure of astrology, had not tempted her to experiment ahead of time.

‘I almost forgot!’ she exclaimed. ‘I have brought a list of candidates to sail in the royal vessel, with – with you.’ As Prince Tjalan turned to her again, she opened her scroll case and gave him the parchment.

‘Ah yes,’ he murmured, running a finger down the list of names. ‘Hmm. I don’t know if this is a relief or not—’ He waved the paper at her. ‘I can see beside it like a shadow the list of those who will not escape – either because they choose to stay, or because there is not enough room. I had hoped that the only decisions required of me would be where to stow their gear.’

Damisa heard his bitterness and had to quell a powerful impulse to reach out to him. ‘Lord Micail and Lady Tiriki will be sailing with Captain Reidel, but I am on your list,’ she said softly.

‘Yes, little flower, and I am very glad of it!’ Tjalan’s gaze returned to her face, and his grim look lightened. ‘Who would have thought my skinny little cousin would have grown so—’

Another call from Dantu cut off whatever he had been about to say, but Damisa was to cherish those parting words for a long time. He had noticed that she was grown up. He had really seen her. Surely, the word he had not had the chance to say was ‘fair,’ or ‘lovely,’ or even ‘beautiful.’

The house where Reio-ta dwelt with Deoris was set into a hillside close to the Temple, with a view of the sea. As a small child, Tiriki had lived in the house of the priestesses with her aunt Domaris. They had brought her to Ahtarrath as an infant to save her from the danger she faced as the child of the Grey Mage whose magic had awakened the evil of Dyaus. Deoris had feared her daughter dead until she came to Ahtarrath and they met once more. By then, Tiriki thought of Domaris as her mother, and it was only after Domaris’s death that Tiriki lived with Deoris.

Now, as she climbed the broad steps of the house, arm in arm with Micail, she could not restrain a sudden sigh of appreciation for the harmony of the building and the gardens around it. As a child, confused and grieving, she had taken little notice of her surroundings, and by the time the pain of loss had faded, she had learned her way about too well to really see the place for what it was.

‘How glorious.’ Chedan, ascending close behind them, echoed her thought. ‘It is a sad fact that we often appreciate things most deeply when we are about to lose them.’

Tiriki nodded, surreptitiously wiping away a tear. When this is gone, how often will I regret all the times I passed this way without stopping to really look?

For a moment the three paused, gazing westward. From here, the greater part of the broken city was hidden by the glittering roofs of the Temple district. Beyond them was only the ambiguous blue of the sea.

‘It looks so peaceful,’ Chedan said.

‘An illusion,’ Micail gritted, as he led them through the portico. Tiriki shivered as they crossed the decorative bridge that had, she reminded herself, always swayed slightly beneath the lightest step, but since the morning’s quake, she had become preternaturally aware of the leashed stresses in the earth. Whenever anything shook, she tensed and wondered if the horror was about to begin again.

Here, she observed, there were no chaotic piles of keepsakes and discards, none of the frantic bustling that rippled through the rest of the city, just a soft-voiced servant, waiting to escort the visitors to Reio-ta and Deoris. Tiriki’s heart sank with a premonition that their errand here would fail. Clearly, her parents did not intend to leave.

Chedan had gone ahead of her into the wide chamber that looked out on the gardens, and stood, saluting Deoris. It seemed to Tiriki that his voice trembled as he spoke the conventional words. What had Chedan been to her mother, she wondered, when they were young together in the Ancient Land? Did he see the mature priestess, with silver threading auburn-black braids coiled like a diadem above her brow, or the shade of a rebellious girl with stormy eyes and a tangle of dark curls – the girl Domaris had described when she spoke of Tiriki’s mother, before Deoris came to Ahtarrath from the Ancient Land?

‘Have you…finished packing?’ Reio-ta was asking. ‘Is the Temple prepared for evacuation, and the acolytes ready to…go?’ The governor’s speech stumbled no more than usual. From his tone, it might have been a perfectly ordinary day.

‘Yes, all is going well,’ Micail answered, ‘or as well as can be expected. Some of the vessels have departed already. We expect to sail out on the morning tide.’

‘We have saved more than enough space on Reidel’s ship for both of you,’ added Tiriki. ‘You must come! Mother –Father—’ she held out her hands. ‘We will need your wisdom. We will need you!’

‘I love you too, darling – but don’t be foolish.’ Deoris’s voice was low and vibrant. ‘I need only see the two of you to know that we have already given you all that you need.’

Reio-ta nodded, his warm eyes smiling. ‘Have you forgotten, I…gave my word, in council? So long as any of my beloved people hold the land, I…I, too, shall stay.’

Tiriki and Micail exchanged a quick but meaningful glance. Time to try the other plan.

‘Then, dear Uncle,’ Micail said reasonably, ‘we must drink deep of your advice while we can.’

‘G-gladly,’ said Reio-ta, with a modest inclination of his head. ‘Perhaps you, Master Chedan, will…drink, of something sweeter? I can offer several good vintages. We have had some…banner years, in your absence.’

‘You know me too well,’ the mage said softly.

Micail laughed. ‘If Reio-ta hadn’t offered,’ he went on, disingenuously, ‘no doubt Chedan would have asked.’ Catching Tiriki’s eye, Micail jerked his head slightly in the direction of the garden, as if to say, The two of you could talk alone out there.

‘Come, Mother,’ Tiriki said brightly, ‘let the men have their little ceremonies. Perhaps we might walk in your garden? I think that is what I will miss most.’

Deoris lifted an eyebrow, first at Tiriki and then at Micail, but she allowed her daughter to take her arm without comment. As they passed through the open doors, they could hear Chedan proposing the first toast.

The courtyard garden Reio-ta had built for his lady was unique in Ahtarrath, and since the fall of the Ancient Land, perhaps in the world. It had been designed as a place of meditation, a re-creation of the primal paradise. Even now the breeze was sweet with the continual trilling of songbirds, and the scent of herbs both sweet and pungent perfumed the air. In the shade of the willows, mints grew green and water-loving plants opened lush blossoms, while salvias and artemisia and other aromatic herbs had been planted in raised beds to harvest the sun. The spaces between the flagstones were filled with the tiny leaves and pale blue flowers of creeping thyme.

The path itself turned in a spiral so graceful that it seemed the work of nature rather than art, leading inward to the grotto where the image of the Goddess was enshrined, half-veiled by hanging sprays of jasmine, whose waxy white flowers released their own incense into the warm air.

Tiriki turned and saw Deoris’s large eyes full of tears.

‘What is it? I must admit a hope that you are finally willing to fear what must come, if it will persuade you—’

Deoris shook her head, with a strange smile. ‘Then I am sorry to disappoint you, my darling, but frankly the future has never had any real power to frighten me. No, Tiriki, I was only remembering…it hardly seems seventeen years ago that we were standing in this very spot – or no – it was up on the terrace. This garden was barely planted then. Now look at it! There are flowers here I still can’t name. Really I don’t know why anyone wants wine; I can grow quite drunken sometimes just on the perfumes here—’

‘Seventeen years ago?’ Tiriki prompted, a little too firmly.

‘You and Micail were no more than children,’ Deoris smiled, ‘when Rajasta came. Do you remember?’

‘Yes,’ answered Tiriki, ‘it was just before Domaris died.’ For a moment she saw her own pain echoed in her mother’s eyes. ‘I still miss her.’

‘She raised me, too, you know, with Rajasta, who was more of a father to me than my own,’ Deoris said in a low voice. ‘After my mother died, and my father was too busy running the Temple to pay attention to us. Rajasta helped take care of me, and Domaris was the only mother I knew.’

Although she had heard these very words a thousand times, Tiriki stretched out her hand in swift compassion. ‘I have been fortunate, then, in having two!’

Deoris nodded. ‘And I have been blessed in you, Daughter, late though I came to know you! And in Galara, of course,’ she added, with a look almost of reproof.

The gap in their ages had given Tiriki and the daughter Deoris had by Reio-ta few opportunities to know each other. She knew much more about Nari, the son Deoris had borne to fulfill her obligation to bear a child of the priestly caste, who had become a priest in Lesser Tarisseda.

‘Galara,’ Tiriki mused. ‘She is thirteen now?’

‘Yes. Just the age you were when Rajasta brought me here. He was an eminent priest in the Ancient Land, perhaps our greatest authority on the meaning of the movements of the stars. He interpreted them to mean that we had seven years – but it was the date of his own death he foretold. We thought then that perhaps he had been completely mistaken. We hoped…’ She plucked a sprig of lavender and turned it in her fingers as they walked. The sharp, sweet scent filled the air. ‘But I should not complain; I have had ten more years to love you and to enjoy this beautiful place. I should have died beside your father, many, many years ago!’

They had completed a circuit of the spiral path, and stood once more opposite the Mother’s shrine.

Tiriki stopped, realizing that her mother was speaking not of Reio-ta, who had been a kind stepfather, but of her true father. ‘Riveda,’ she muttered, and in her mouth it was like a curse. ‘But you were innocent. He used you!’

‘Not entirely,’ Deoris said simply, ‘I – I loved him.’ She looked around at her daughter, fixing her with those stormy eyes whose color could shift so swiftly from grey to blue. ‘What do you know of Riveda – or rather, what do you think you know?’

Tiriki hid her frown behind a flower. ‘He was a healer, whose treatises on medicine have become a standard for our training today – even though he was executed as a black sorcerer!’ She lowered her voice. ‘What else do I need to know?’ she asked, forcing a smile. ‘In every way that matters, Reio-ta has been my father.’

‘Oh, Tiriki, Tiriki.’ Deoris shook her head, her eyes filled with secret thoughts. ‘It is true, Reio-ta was born to be a father, and a good one. But still there is a duty of blood that is different than the honor you owe the man who raised you. You need to understand what it was that Riveda was seeking – why it was that he fell.’

They had come to the center of the spiral, where the Goddess smiled serenely through her curtain of flowers. Deoris paused, bowing her head in reverence. Behind her was a garden seat carved of stone, inlaid with a golden pattern of turtles. She sank down upon it as if her legs did not have the strength to carry both her and the weight of her memories.

Tiriki nodded to the Power the image represented, then leaned against a nearby olive tree and crossed her arms beneath her breasts, waiting. It was not the Great Mother, but the woman who had borne her whose words interested her now.

‘Your father had the most brilliant mind of anyone I have ever known. And except perhaps for Micail’s father, Micon, he had the strongest will. We never fell in love with ordinary men, Domaris and I,’ Deoris added with a rueful smile. ‘But what you must understand first of all is that Riveda was not a destroyer. Both black and white are mingled in the grey robes his order wore. He knew from his studies and the practice of medicine that any living thing that does not grow and change will die. Riveda tested the laws of the Temple because he desired to make it stronger, and ultimately he broke them for the same reason. He came to believe that the priesthood had become so locked into ancient dogmas that it could not adapt, no matter what disaster might occur.’

‘That is not so,’ Tiriki replied indignantly, defending the traditions and training that had shaped her life.

‘I sincerely hope that it is not,’ Deoris smiled tolerantly. ‘But it is up to you and Micail to prove him wrong. And you will never have a better chance. You will lose much that is fair in this exile, but you will escape our old sins as well.’

‘And so will you, Mother! You must agree to come away—’

‘Hush,’ said Deoris, ‘I cannot. I will not. Riveda was tried and executed not only for his own deeds, but also for much that was done by others – the Black Robes, who were only caught and punished later. It was their work that broke the bonds Riveda had loosened. They sought power, but Riveda wanted knowledge. That was why I helped him. If Riveda deserved his fate – then my guilt is no less.’

‘Mother—’ Tiriki began, for still she did not entirely understand.

‘Give my place to your sister,’ Deoris said, resolutely changing the subject. ‘I have already arranged for an escort to bring Galara and her baggage to your chambers the first thing in the morning, so you will have a hard time turning her away.’

‘I assumed you would send her,’ Tiriki said, exasperated.

‘Then that’s settled. And now,’ said Deoris as she got to her feet, ‘I think it’s time we rejoined the men. I doubt that Chedan and Micail have had any more luck in persuading Reio-ta than you have had with me. But they are two against one, and my husband may be feeling in need of reinforcement by now.’

Defeated, Tiriki followed her mother back to the porch, where the men were sitting with goblets and two small jugs of Carian wine. But Micail looked thunderous, and Chedan was also glaring at his drink. Only Reio-ta showed any sign of serenity.

Tiriki shot Micail a glance, as if to say, I take it he is also still determined to stay?

Micail nodded faintly, and Tiriki turned to her stepfather, intending to beg him to go with them.

Instead, she pointed to Deoris, exclaiming, ‘You would go fast enough if she decided on it! You are sacrificing each other, for no good reason. You must agree to come with us!’

Deoris and Reio-ta exchanged tired glances, and Tiriki felt a sudden chill, as if she were a novice priestess chancing upon forbidden mysteries.

‘It is your destiny to carry the truth of the Guardians to a new land,’ said Deoris gently, ‘and it is our karma to remain. It is not sacrifice but an atonement, which we have owed since…’

Reio-ta completed her thought. ‘Since before the…fall of the Ancient Land.’

Chedan had closed his eyes in pain. Micail looked from one to the other, brows knitting in sudden surmise.

‘Atonement,’ Micail echoed softly. ‘Tell me, Uncle – what do you know about the Man with Crossed Hands?’ His voice shook, and Tiriki also felt a tremor in the stone beneath her feet, as if something else had heard his words.

‘What?’ rasped Reio-ta, his dark face going ashen. ‘He shows himself to you?’

‘Yes,’ whispered Tiriki, ‘this morning, when the earth shook – he was trying to break his chains. And I – I knew his name! How can that be?’

Once more an odd look passed between Deoris and her husband, and he reached out to take her hand.

‘Then you unwittingly bring the clearest proof,’ said Deoris quietly, ‘that it is our fate and our duty to stay. Sit,’ she gestured imperiously. ‘Tiriki, I see now that I must tell you and Micail the rest of the story, and even you, Chedan, old friend. Great adept though you are, your teachers could not give you the parts of the story that they did not know.’

Reio-ta took a deep breath. ‘I…loved my brother.’ His gaze flickered toward Micail in momentary appeal. ‘Even in the Temple of Light…there have always been some who…served the darkness. We were…taken by the Black Robes who…sought for themselves the power of Ahtarrath. I agreed to let them use me…if they would spare him. They betrayed me, and tried to kill him. But Micon…forced himself to…live, long enough to sire you and pass to you his power.’ He looked at Micail again, struggling for words.

Tiriki gazed at them with quick compassion, understanding now why it was Micail, not Reio-ta, who held the magical heritage of his royal line. If Micon had died before his son was born, the powers of Ahtarrath would have descended to Reio-ta, and thereby to the black sorcerers who then held him in thrall…

‘They…broke…his body,’ stammered Reio-ta. ‘And…my mind. I did not know myself till…long after. Riveda took me in and I…helped him…’

Tiriki looked back at her mother. What did this have to do with the Man with Crossed Hands?

‘Reio-ta helped Riveda as a dog will serve the one who feeds him,’ Deoris said defensively, ‘not understanding what he did. I assisted Riveda because I loved the spirit in him that yearned to bring new life into the world. In the crypt beneath the Temple of Light there was an…image, whose form seemed different to each one who beheld it. To me, it always appeared as a bound god, crossed arms straining against his chains. But the image was a prison that confined the forces of chaos. Together we worked the rite that would release that power because Riveda thought that by unleashing that force he could wield the energies that power the world. But my sister forced me to tell her what we had done. The wards were already unraveling when Domaris went down into that dark crypt alone, at risk of life and limb, to repair them—’

‘All these things I knew,’ Chedan put in quietly. ‘The power of the Omphalos Stone can only slow the destructive forces unleashed by these rites long ago. The disintegration has been gradual, but it is still happening. We can only hope that when Atlantis falls, there will be an end.’

‘Didn’t Rajasta use to say, “To give in instead of fighting death is cowardice,”’ Micail put in, tartly.

‘But he would also say—’ Deoris replied with painful sweetness, ‘“When you break something, it is your duty to mend it, or at least sweep up the debris.” Although we meant no evil, we made the choices that brought it forth – we set in motion a chain of events that has doomed our way of life.’

A long moment passed in silence. The four of them sat as motionless as the carven friezes that framed the doorway.

‘We must stay because there is one final ritual to perform.’ By Reio-ta’s steady speech, they recognized the depth of his emotion. ‘When the Man with Crossed Hands breaks his chains, we who know him so well must confront him.’

‘Spirit to spirit we will address him,’ added Deoris, her great eyes shining. ‘There is no Power in the world without a purpose. The chaos that Dyaus brings shall be as a great wind that strips trees and scatters seeds far and wide. You are born to preserve those seeds, my children – glorious branches from the ageless tree of Atlantis, freed of its rot, free to take root in new lands. Perhaps the Maker will understand this, and be appeased.’

Was it truly so? At this moment, Tiriki knew only that this day offered her the last sight that she would ever have of her mother. Sobbing, she moved forward and folded the older woman in her arms.