Tiriki nodded, and took the hand he held out to her. But all this bright and beautiful life that surrounds us must pass away before the prophecy can be fulfilled.
But for now, the day was fair, and the aromas rising from her plate offered a pleasant distraction from whatever fate might have in store. Willing herself to think only of the moment, and of Micail, Tiriki sought for a more neutral subject.
"Did you know that Elara is a fine archer?"
Micail raised an eyebrow. "That seems an odd amusement for a healera"she's apprenticed to Liala, is she not?"
"Yes, she is, but you know that a healer's work requires both precision and nerve. Elara has become something of a leader among the acolytes."
"I would have expected the Alkonan girlya"our acolyte Damisaa"to take that role," he replied. "Isn't she the oldest? And she's some relation to Tjalan, I believe. That family does like to take charge." He grinned, and Tiriki remembered that he had spent several summers with the Prince of Alkonath.
"Perhaps she is a little too aware of her royal background. In any case, she was the last of them to arrive here, and I think she's finding it hard to fit in."
"If that is the hardest thing she has to deal with she may count herself fortunate!" Micail downed the last of his wine and got to his feet.
Tiriki sighed, but indeed, it was time for them to go.
When the innkeeper realized that the couple who had been occupying the best table on his terrace for so very long were the prince and his lady, he tried to refuse payment, but Micail insisted on impressing his signet on a bit of clay.
"Present that at the palace and my servants will give you what I owea""
"You are too kind," Tiriki jested softly, as they were at last permitted to leave the taverna. "The man plainly felt honored by a visit from the prince and wished to make you a gift in return. Why did you not allow it?"
"Think of it as an affirmation." Micail smiled, a little grimly. "That bit of clay represents my belief that someone will be here tomorrow. And if, as you say, he would prefer the honor, well, there is nothing to force him to redeem the debt. Memory fades. But he has my seal for a keepsakea""
Slowly, they walked back to the palace, speaking of ordinary things, but Tiriki could not help recalling how the screams of the seeress had echoed from the crypt.
When Damisa returned to the House of the Falling Leaves, the other acolytes were just finishing a lesson. Elara of Ahtarrath was the first to see her come in. Elara, dark-haired and buxom, was a native of this island, and it had fallen to her to make the newcomers from the other Sea Kingdoms welcome as they arrived.
On each island, the temples trained priests and priestesses. But from among the most talented young people in each generation, twelve were chosen to learn the greater Mysteries. Some would one day return to their own islands as senior clergy, while others explored specialties such as healing or astrology. From the Twelve came the adepts, who served all Atlantis as Vested Guardians in the Temple of Light.
The house was a low, sprawling structure of oddly aligned corridors and oversize suites, rumored to have been built a century or more ago for a foreign dignitary. The acolytes often amused themselves with suggesting other explanations for the stone mermaids in the weathered fountain in the central courtyard. Whatever its origins, until quite recently the strange old villa had served as a dormitory for unmarried priests, pilgrims, and refugees. Now it was the House of the Twelve.
Some of the acolytes welcomed Elara's help while others resisted her, but Damisa, who was a cousin of the prince of Alkonath, was usually the most self-sufficient of them all. Right now, thought Elara, she looked terrible.
"Damisa? What has happened to you? Are you ill?" She flinched as the other girl turned to her with a blind stare. "Did something happen at the ceremony?" Elara took a firm grip on Damisa's elbow and made her sit down by the fountain. She turned to get the attention of one of the others. "Lanath, go get her some water!" Elara said in a low voice as all the acolytes surrounded them. Elara sat down, pushing back the black curls that kept falling into her eyes. "Be quiet, all of you!" She glared until they moved back. "Let her breathe!"
She knew that Damisa had been called to attend Lady Tiriki early that morning, and she had envied her. Elara's role as chela to the Blue Robe priestess Liala in the Temple of Ni-Terat was a pleasant enough assignment, but hardly glamorous. The acolytes had been told that their apprenticeships were determined by the placement of their stars and the will of the gods. It made sense that Elara's betrothed, Lanath, was assigned to the Temple astrologer because he had a good head for figures, but Elara had always suspected that Damisa's royal connections had got her the place with Tiriki, who was not only a priestess but Princess of Ahtarrath, after all. But she did not envy Damisa now.
"Tell us, Damisa," she murmured as the other girl drank. "Was someone hurt? Has something gone wrong?"
"Wrong!" Damisa closed her eyes for a moment, then straightened and looked around the circle. "Haven't you heard the rumors that have been going around the city?"
"Of course we have. But where were you?" asked little Iriel.
"At an equinox ritual, attending my lady," Damisa replied.
"Those rituals are usually held in the Great Temple of Manoah," observed Elis, who was also a native of the city. "It wouldn't take you this long to get back from there!"
"We weren't at the Temple of Light," Damisa said tightly. "We went to another place, a sanctuary built into the cliffs at the eastern edge of the city. The portico looks ordinary enough, but the actual Temple is deep underground. Or at least I suppose so. I was told to wait in the alcove at the head of the passage."
"Banur's bones!" Elara exclaimed. "That's the Temple ofa"I don't know what it isa"no one ever goes there!"
"I don't know what it is, either," Damisa responded with a return of her usual arrogance, "but some Power is down there. I could see odd flashes of light all the way up the passageway."
"It's the Sinking . . ." said Kalaran in a dull voice. "My own island is gone and now this one is going to go, too. My parents migrated to Alkonath, but I was chosen for the Temple. They thought it was an honor for me to come here. . . ."
The acolytes looked at one another, shaken.
"We don't know that the ritual failed," Elara said bracingly. "We must waita"we will be tolda""
"They had to carry the seeress out of that chamber," Damisa interrupted. "She looked half dead. They've taken her to Liala and the healers at the House of Ni-Terat."
"I should go there," said Elara. "Liala may need my assistance."
"Why bother?" glowered Lanath. "We're all going to die."
"Be still!" Elara rounded on him, wondering what had possessed the astrologers to betroth her to a boy who would run from his own shadow if it barked at him. "All of youa"calm down. We are the Chosen Twelve, not a pack of backcountry peasants. Do you think our elders have not foreseen this disaster and made some kind of plan? Our duty is to help them however we can." She pushed her dark hair back again, hoping that what she had said was true.
"And if they haven't?" asked Damisa's betrothed, a rather stodgy, brown-haired lad called Kalhan.
"Then we will die." Damisa recovered herself enough to scowl at him.
"Well, if we do," said little Iriel, with her irrepressible smile, "I am going to have a few strong words to say to the gods!"
When Micail and Tiriki returned to the palace they found a blue-robed priestess waiting at the gate, bearing news from Mesira. Alyssa had awakened and was expected to make a good recovery.
If only, Tiriki thought darkly, we could do so well at healing her prophecy. . . .
Yet she kept a smile on her lips as she accompanied Micail upstairs to the suite of rooms they shared on the upper floor. The veil before the alcove that held the shrine to the goddess and the hangings that curtained the doors to the balcony stirred in the night wind from the sea. The whitewashed walls were frescoed with a frieze of golden falcons above a bed of crimson lilies. In the flickering light of the hanging lamps, the birds soared and the flowers seemed to bend in an invisible breeze.
When he had changed into a fresh robe, Micail went off to confer with Reio-ta. Left alone, Tiriki ordered soft-footed servants to fill her bath with cool, scented water. When she had bathed, they waited to pat her dry. When they had gone, she walked out onto the balcony and gazed at the city below. To the east, the Star Mountain loomed against the crisp night sky. Groves of cypress covered the lower slopes, but the cone rose sharply above. The perpetual flame in the Temple at its summit appeared as a faint, pyramidal glow. Scattered points of light marked outlying farmsteads on the lower slopes, dimming one by one as the inhabitants sought their beds. In the city, folk stayed up later. Bobbing torches moved along the streets in the entertainment quarter.
As the air cooled, the land gave up scents of drying grass and freshly turned earth like a rich perfume. She gazed out upon the peace of the night and in her heart, the words of the evening hymn became a prayer.
Oh Source of Stars in splendor
Against the darkness showing,
Grant us restful slumber
This night, Thy blessing knowing.
How could such peace, such beauty, be destroyed?
Her bed was hung with gauze draperies and covered with linen so fine it felt like silk against the skin. No comfort that Ahtarrath could provide was denied her, but despite her prayer, Tiriki could not sleep. By the time Micail came to bed, it was midnight. She could feel him gazing down at her and tried to make her breathing slow and even. Just because she was wakeful was no reason he should be deprived of sleep as well. But the bond between them went beyond the senses of the flesh.
"What is wrong, beloved?" His voice was soft in the darkness.
She let out her breath in a long sigh. "I am afraid."
"But we have known ever since we were born that doom might come to Ahtarrath."
"Yesa"at some time in the distant future. But Alyssa's warning makes it immediate!"
"Perhaps . . . perhaps . . ." The bed creaked as he sat down and reached to caress her hair. "Still, you know how hard it is to know the timing of a prophecy."
Tiriki sat up, facing him. "Do you truly believe that?"
"Beloved . . . none of us can know what our knowing may change. All we can do is to use what powers we have to face the future when it comes." He sighed, and Tiriki thought she heard an echo of thunder, although the night was cloudless.
"Ah, yes, your powers," she whispered bitterly, for what use were they now? "You can invoke the wind and the lightning, but what of the earth beneath? And how will that be passed on, if all else falls? Reio-ta has only a daughter, and Ia"I am unable to bear you a child!"
Sensing her tears, he clasped her closer to him. "You have not done soa"but we are still young!"
Tiriki let her head rest against his shoulder and relaxed into the strength of his arms, drawing in the faint spicy scent of his body mixed with the oils of his own bath.
"Two babes have I laid upon the funeral pyre," she whispered, "and three more I lost before they could be born. The priestesses of Caratra have no more help for me, Micail." She felt her hot tears welling up as his arms tightened around her. "Our mothers were sistersa"perhaps we are too close kin. You must take another wife, my beloved, one who can give you a child."
She felt him shake his head in the darkness.
"The law of Ahtarrath allows it," she whispered.
"And the law of love?" he asked. He grasped her shoulders, looking down at her. She felt, rather than saw, the intensity in his gaze. "To beget a son worthy to bear my powers, I must give not only my seed but my soul. Truly, beloved, I do not think I would even bea"capablea"with a woman who was not my match in spirit as well as in body. We were destined for each other, Tiriki, and there can never be anyone for me but you."
She reached up to trace the strong lines of his cheek and brow. "But your line will end!"
He bent his head to kiss away her tears. "If Ahtarrath itself must cease to be, does it matter so greatly if the magic of its princes is lost as well? It is the wisdom of Atlantis we must preserve, not its powers."
"Osinarmen . . . do you know how much I love you?" She lay back with a sigh as his hands began to move along her body, each touch awakening a sensation to which her body had learned to respond as the spiritual exercises of the Temple had trained her soul.
"Eilantha . . . Eilantha!" he answered and closed his arms around her.
At that summons, spirit and body opened together, overwhelmed and transfigured in the ultimate union.
Two.
Damisa peered through the foliage of the garden of the House of the Twelve, wondering if she would be able to see any of the earthquake damage from here. Since the ritual in the under ground Temple, the earth had been quiet, and Prince Micail had ordered his guards to help with the reconstruction. Ahtarrath's capital had grown from the remnants of a more ancient settlement. The Three Towers, sheathed in gold, had stretched toward the sky for a thousand years. Almost as venerable were the Seven Arches, in whose weathered sides students strove to trace hieroglyphs long since worn away.
The clergy of Ahtarra had done their best to prepare the old rooms of the House of the Falling Leaves for the twelve acolytes, but it was the gardens that made the location ideal, for they set the house well apart from the city and the temple. Damisa stepped back, letting the branches of the laurel hedge swing down. From here, no other building could be seen.
She turned to watch the group on the lawn a little distance away. Priestly inbreeding could produce weakness as well as talent. She often wondered if she herself had been chosen as an acolyte because of her royal grandmother's influence rather than her own merit, but half the others would have run screaming had they seen those lights flickering up the passageway of the underground Temple. It occurred to her now that the guardians might have seen some benefit in adding the robust blood of Alkonath to the priestly lineage.
But why had they decided that the detestable Kalhan, with his blunt features and equally blunt sense of humor, was a fit mate for her? Surely he would have been a better match for Cleta, who had no sense of humor at all. As a minor princess, Damisa would have expected an arranged marriage, but at least her husband should be a man of power. Tiriki had said Kalhan would probably improve with age, but Damisa could see no signs of it now.
There he was, leaping about on the lawn, leading a cluster of other acolytes in boisterous cheers, while Aldel, who she had decided was the nicest of the boys, and Lanath, who was better with his head than his hands, wrestled fiercely. Even Elara, usually the most sensible of the female acolytes, was watching them with an amused smile. Selast, on the other hand, looked as if she wanted to join the battle. She could probably win, thought Damisa, as she considered the younger girl's wiry frame. Damisa turned away. She could not tell if the fight was in fun or fury, and for the moment she did not care.
They all seem to have forgotten to worry about the end of the world, she thought moodily. How I wish I was home! It's an honor to be Chosen and all of thata"but it's always so hot here, and the food is strange. But would it be any safer there? Are we even allowed to run away? Or are we expected to just nobly stand here and let the world fall to pieces around us?
Battling sniffles, Damisa let her wandering feet take her up the grassy slope. In moments, she emerged onto the outermost of the garden's many terracesa"a long, broad retaining wall with a sweeping view of the city and the sea.
Only two days ago Damisa had discovered this spot, which she was certain could not be seen even from the roof of the House of the Twelve. With any luck, the others did not yet know about it.
As always, the sea wind dispelled her ill temper. Every salty gust felt like a secret love letter from her faraway home. Minutes passed before she noticed how many boats were out on the water todaya"no, not boats, she realized, but ships, and not just any ships, but a fleet of three-masted wingbirds, the pride and the might of Atlantis. High in the water, their wicked prows sheathed in hardened bronze, they could be rowed to ramming speed, or ride the wind under sail. In precise formation they made the turn around the headland.
Nestled almost directly below her vantage point was a small harbor. It was rarely used and ordinarily quiet enough for one to sink into trance while staring at its clear blue waters. But now, one by one, the tall wingbirds cast out their anchors as their brilliantly colored banners fluttered and settled to rest in the calm of the bay. The largest was already moored by the quay, furling purple sails.
Damisa rubbed her eyes again. How can it be? she asked herself, but there was no fault in her vision. From each proud mainmast flew the Circle of Falcons, the sovereign banner of her homeland. A surge of longing brought tears to her eyes.
"Alkonath," she breathed; and without a second thought, she lifted her robes and began to run, her long auburn hair streaming behind her as she passed the ongoing wrestling match and flew out of the garden to the stairway that led down to the harbor.
The largest of the wingbirds had dropped anchor at the main docks, but had not yet lowered its gangplank. Merchants and city folk had already convened on the pier, chattering excitedly as they waited to see what would happen next. But even with their servants, they were almost outnumbered by the white-clad men and women of the priests' caste.
Tiriki was at the very forefront, swathed in fine layers of colorless fabric, her headdress dangling flowers of gold across her hair. Her two companions were covered by mantles of Ahtarrath's royal purple. The rubies in their diadems burned like fire in the sun. It took Damisa a moment to recognize them as Reio-ta and Micail.
The ships were expected, then, the acolyte deduced, knowing well how long it took to put the ceremonial garments on. The fleet must have been sighted from the mountain, and a runner sent down to warn them that visitors were coming. She pressed through the crowd until she had reached her mentor's side.
Tiriki inclined her head slightly in greeting. "Damisa, what a sense of timing!" But before Damisa could wonder if Tiriki was poking fun at her, a collective cheer announced that the visitors had begun to debark.
First to emerge were the green-cloaked soldiers armed with pikes and swords. They escorted two men in traveler's cloaks of simple wool, accompanied by a priest whose robe was cut in an unfamiliar style. Reio-ta stepped forward, raising his ceremonial staff to trace the circle of blessing. Tiriki and Micail had moved closer together. Damisa had to crane her neck to see.
"In the name of Manoah, Maker of All, whose radiance fills our hearts as He illuminates the sky," Reio-ta said, "I welcome you."
"We give thanks to Nar-Inabi, the Star Shaper, who has brought you safely across the sea," Micail added. As he lifted his arms to make a formal obeisance, Damisa caught sight of the gleaming serpent bracelets that could be worn only by a prince of the Imperial lineage.