Struck by the sudden return of all her doubts, she turned to look back imploringly at Chedan, but he only shook his head. Closing her eyes, she steadied herself for what was to come. If Micail could not dissuade the other priests from using the Sun Wheel against them, or worse still, if he were persuaded, or deluded, or constrained, to help them, she would find herself pitted against him. As she advanced into the cave, she found herself almost wishing that she, like Alyssa, had died before seeing this day.
As Iriel cautiously followed Tiriki inside with another torch, the mage, summoning an inner reserve of strength, helped to guide the movement of the carriers as they struggled and fought to get the cabinet into the grotto. But Chedan's thoughts were distracted with visions, not of the future, but of the events that had brought him to this dreaded moment. Yet the life that he had lived and the many incarnations in which he had served the gods before that had taught him only too well that death could but delay one's fate, not change it. Putting off destiny only made the next life harder.
But he did wish that he did not always feel so very tired. It is the Stone, he reminded himself. It knows that we mean to use its power, and it will have its price . . .
With heartfelt grunts, the carriers struggled wearily along the passage, following the flickering torches. Often they were not even sure if they were climbing or descending.
The air was cool, at least, but it was dank, and the density of earth and stone above weighed on their spirits. "We are children of Light, We fear not the Night," Kalaran began singing, rather grimly, and with relief, the others joined the songa"
"Let sorrow make a space for joy,
Let grief with jubilance alloy,
Step by step to make our way,
Till Darkness shall unite with Day . . ."
"Herea"" Tiriki's voice echoed back down the tunnel. "This is the arrow I drew to mark the spot. You seea"there is the spiral pattern pecked into the stone. Don't touch it!" she warned as Iriel reached out. "It has the power to hypnotize us and distract us from our necessary task."
The footing here was smoother and the bearers could go more quicklya"the Stone was becoming less restive too, as if it now understood where it was being taken, and approved. The passage curved around and doubled back upon itself several times, but it did not take long for Chedan to recognize, with a small jolt of satisfaction, that it was in fact the same pattern that they had been carving upon the surface of the Tor.
When walking a maze, the final turnings may draw one inward swiftly. Chedan hurried after the bearers as if caught up in the current of a streama"but this was a current of power, that carried them all into another tufa-crusted chamber, barely big enough for them all.
We have done the right thing to bring the Stone here, Chedan thought as he and Tiriki bent to unfasten the latches. Although the shielding effect of the many feet of earth and stone around it made its energies less disruptive than before, he could feel the power of the Omphalos surging even before the heavy lid began to open.
"Gently, gently," he urged, as Tiriki freed the side panels of the cabinet from the framework and laid them aside. The Stone was already glowing in its silken wrappings like the sun through clouds.
"Truly the gods have guided us," whispered Tiriki. "See, therea"" She pointed to the center of the chamber. "A hollow that might have been made to hold the Stone!"
Allowing Kalaran to assist, they dragged the broken cabinet closer; then Chedan set his hands around the swathed, egg-shaped Stone and began to rock it back and forth inside its box. At his touch, its inner fires awakened and the frame cracked in three places, the pieces falling to the ground. Chedan gasped as a surge of power ran up his arms, and hearing him, Iriel dropped her torch and shrieked. Everyone else froze in place.
"Let me help!" Tiriki cried. Her torch too had failed, but the chamber was becoming brighter and the white tufa surfaces glittered.
"No!" he insisted, gesturing to them to stand aside as he ripped away the last of the silken cloths. Alone, he could use the Stone's own power to move it, but it was like trying to hold a burning coal. All at once the Stone's power surged again, teetering dangerously before him for a long moment before it settled onto the waiting hollow. Tiriki caught him as he staggered back, his palms throbbing furiously. He held them up, amazed to see no burns.
"Well, then," he said softly to the Stone. "Well, thena"have you found a home at last?"
As if in reply, the eerie surface dulled, absorbing its own glow. But then, as if the sun had risen inside it, the chamber filled with white-hot light. They all cried out in wonder.
"The sacred center is our frame . . ." Chedan intoned. "Where all is changing, all the same . . ."
All together they sang the verses, palms extended toward the Stone, until its overwhelming brilliance muted to something more bearable to mortal eyes. With a long sigh, Chedan groped for the staff he had leaned against the wall.
As the others, too, fell silent, Tiriki laughed a little breathlessly.
"My betrothed died to save this thing," said Iriel quietly. "I hope that it will save us now . . ."
"Pray instead that its powers will never be needed!" said Chedan roughly. "Think only that we have done well to give it a proper setting. Where the Omphalos rests is the navel of the world! Once it lay hidden and unknown in the Ancient Land, until Ardral and Rajasta and I were called to carry it to Ahtarrath. Now it has come to this place. Here let it remain and bring only balance and light unto the world. May it be so!"
"So let it be," the others answered in chorus, voices chastened.
"Now let us go," the mage said sternly, "and fervently pray that we need never think of the Stone again!"
But even as he spoke, he knew that they would not be so fortunate.
Nineteen.
After the Omphalos Stone was laid to rest, the Tor seemed to glow with rays of light that swirled like red and white dragons twining in a ceaseless dance. Waking, Tiriki could feel them; asleep, they sometimes haunted her dreams. But those dreams were better than the nightmaresa"the twisted shadowy figures who followed her, only to corner her at last and reveal the leering face of . . . Micail.
After the third night in which such dreams robbed her of rest, she took refuge with Taret. Before Chedan and the others she still thought it best to pretend confidence in Micail's good faith, but keeping her doubts to herself was plainly not helping. Taret was close enough to care about the outcome, but not immediately involved. And the old woman was wise. Another such night, she thought grimly, and I'll be raving like Alyssaa"Caratra rest her.
Leaving Domara in the care of the nursemaids, she started up the path, pausing once to note the condition of her favorite patch of wild garlic, and a little farther on, to pluck a spray of wild thyme. She also offered her respects to the old oak tree, thinking even as she did so how surprised Micail would be to know that she could even identify such things. Here I am like Deoris in her garden, she thought with a sad smile. If only we had her here. Destiny be damned! I should have grabbed her and dragged her down to the ships. She could have done so much good . . . And she had so much more experience with Temple politics, and for that matter, in dealing with nobles.
Prince Tjalan had made it quite plain that his goal was nothing less than continuation of the civilization of Atlantis, and Micail had not seemed to question that. It had not occurred to either man to ask if Tiriki supported that goal. Even two years ago she might have agreed, she thought, as she passed the yew trees that flanked the pathway to the Blood Spring. But from the moment the Crimson Serpent had arrived here, the lack of resources had forced them to forsake their old way of life. Only by learning from the marsh folk had they had been able to survive.
Was she only making a virtue of necessity? Happy as she was here, she had to admit there was much about the old world that she still missed, and she knew that there were others in the community at the Tor who longed for lost customs far more than she. But Tiriki could not help feeling that those who persisted in clinging to the goals and ambitions of a vanished empire were only wasting their efforts and their resources. Even so, she would not have strenuously objected if any of her followers had chosen to leave the Tor and live as Tjalan thought best. But the prince had not offered them any choice at all.
The thought that this peaceful place might be invaded made her shudder. That is the only argument for giving in to Tjalan's demands. Then at least they would leave the Tor alone . . . But that, she realized suddenly, was wishful thinking. Whatever the virtues of their intentions, Tjalan's priests were power hungry, and even without the Omphalos Stone, the Tor had been a place of considerable power. The new currents that writhed about it now would call like twin beacons to Stathalkha's sensitives. If they had ignored it before, they would not do so again. One way or another, there would be a conflict between what they wanted, and what she had come to believe she was destined to do here.
But even that certainly brought her little reassurance. Something Chedan had said the previous night had reminded her that the truest destiny was not a thing to be worked out in a single life, but a greater purpose that arose again and again throughout many lives. What she had begun here was right and necessary, and ultimately its promise would be fulfilled; of that she was no longer in doubt. But that fulfilment might take three days or three thousand years.
She found the wisewoman sitting on a stool before her house, using a flint knife to scrape the outer rind from water lily roots. She turned her head as Tiriki came up the path.
"The blessing of the evening be upon you."
"The Lady give you rest," Taret replied, with a slight smile. "I had thought you were keeping talk-fire with your people."
"The council fire is lit," Tiriki said with a sigh, "but nothing is being said that has not been discussed seven times since breakfast." She sank down beside Taret and took up another flake of flint. "So I shall help you pare these roots. My mother used to say there is comfort in such ordinary tasks, an affirmation that life will go on. I did not listen to her then. Perhaps it is not too late."
"It is never too late," said Taret gently, "and I shall be glad of your help."
After a few moments had passed, and she had cut several roots, she said, "I suppose that I have really come to apologize." She admitted, "For I fear we have brought disaster upon you and your peoplea"and that is poor thanks for all your kindness. I have warned the villagers, but they will not leave. Will you go to them and lead them out of danger?"
"This is the place where the Mother has planted me." Taret smiled. "My roots go too deep to pull them up now."
Tiriki sighed. "You don't understand! Alyssa's vision led us to move the Stone to the cave within the Tor, but if she saw how it would help us afterward, she did not say, or I did not understand. We cannot all take refuge therea"even if our minds could bear to be so near it, there is not room for us all!"
"You look at the Stone. That is good. Now, look at the Tor." Taret sliced through a root and reached for the next.
Tiriki stared at her in frustration. "Buta"how?"
"You can no longer go to one and not be in the wind of the other."
Tiriki closed her eyes, wondering how her own language could be so hard to interpret.
The old woman did look up, and her eyes sparkled as if she was restraining herself from laughter. "Sun Girl, Sea Child, you ask too much of an old servant of the sacred waters. But there is one who knows all its secrets. She has blessed you before. Perhaps She will do so again . . . if you ask her nicely." Taret chuckled. "Maybe She has some housework for you to do."
Tiriki sat pensively, remembering. She did indeed have reason to know that the Tor was a place where the many worlds drew very close together.
"Yes," she whispered, and made the gesture of a chela to an adept in the old woman's direction. "As always, Taret, you redirect my eyes to the wisdom that lies in plain sight. That was the mistake we Atlanteans made, perhapsa"to fix our eyes on the heavens and forget that our feet, like the earth on which we stand, are clay." She set down the flint and stood up. "If any come to seek me, tell them I hope to return soon, with better news."
Once, Tiriki had walked this way by chance, and once, by following the winding ways within the Tor. This time she walked the maze on the surface of the hill with the setting sun behind her, passing between day and night as she sought, for the first time by intention, the way between the worlds.
The summit of the Tor wavered and receded as another landscape loomed up around it, blotting out the valley she had come to know so well. Yet she perceived still the cluster of life energies at the foot of the hill, those of the villagers warm and golden, the Atlanteans at once more pale, yet brighter. Her heart seized on the tiny sparkle that was her daughter, then caught at another familiar glow, so incandescent in its purity that at first she did not recognize it as Chedan. Her eyes blurred with a surge of affection for them all.
But this vision showed her nothing she had not already known. She turned impatiently, seeking eastward for the focus of power that was Micail's henge of stones.
Why did I never think to do this before? she wondered then. I have been so embedded in the daily struggle, I never made time to explore the spiritual landscape here. She directed her attention eastward.
Most certainly the Sun Wheel was therea"a circular pulsing of energy in which the white-hot sparks of the initiates dazzled amid the reddish glows that could only be Tjalan and his men.
As she watched, the ring of light grew brighter, pulsing with a rhythm that even from here she knew was based on song. They were loading the henge with power on which they might draw when the time came. And if she could see them, surely they could sense the Tor. She shivered as the distant beam rippled and quivered like the sun seen from under water.
She had hoped that Tjalan would be content to attack them physically. By the time he had marched his soldiers to the Tor, she might have been able to negotiate some accommodation, either with Micail, or with the tribes of Azan. But the prince had found a new weapon, and her vision suggested that he did not mean to wait until it was finished to try it out.
Disheartened, she sank to her knees.
"Lady of Light, Shining One, in my great need you came to me before, unsummoned. Now I call you, I implore you, hear me. Those who should have been our protectors have become our enemies. I do not know whether they will send the forces of the body or of the spirit first, but I am afraid, for my enemies are very strong. Tell me that we will be safe here, and I will believe you. But if you cannot, then I beg you, show me how I may protect those I love . . ."
The answer came as a gentle teasing. "Safe! You mortals use language so strangely. You have had bodies before this one and you will have others after. You die, or your enemy dies, but both of you will live again. Why be afraid?"
"Becausea"we are taught that each life is precious!" Tiriki looked around, hoping to see the one who had spoken, but there was only a shimmering, a fullness in the air. Yet that, too, was an answer. How could she explain her fears to a being whose form was never destroyed but, rather, was constantly transforming, in ways she could not even imagine? "Surely," said Tiriki haltingly, "each life has its own lessons, its own meaning. I would not have this one cut short before I have found out what it has to teach me!"
"That is a good answer." The voice sounded serious.
"And I do not seek destruction of our enemies, only to keep them from doing us harm," Tiriki continued. "Pleasea"will you help us?"
As if in answer, the shimmering intensified, seeming to surround her, but the brilliance was fired by a new source, blazing deep within the hill.
"The Omphalos Stone!" she whispered in awe, and saw it pulse in response to her words.
"The Seed of Light," the voice echoed. "You have planted it, little singer. Your songs can make it grow."
"I still say there is no need to do anything just yet," Micail insisted. "The Lake people are poor, with no resources to stand against us." But he knew all too well that he had been saying the same thing ever since they returned from the meeting with Tiriki, and with as little result. And now it was almost too late for talking. With Tjalan's blessing, indeed, with his overt encouragement, Haladris had yet again called the entire priesthood to the henge. They meant to finish the awakening of the stones as quickly as possible. Within a day or two at the most, Micail knew there would be nothing remaining to prevent the Sun Wheel from being used in whatever way they saw fit.
"What you say would be true if they were marsh people," Mahadalku observed with maddening reason-ability, "but they are in fact priests and Guardians like us. They may have gone native to some degree, but they have got something more." The Tarissedan high priestess clutched her veils tightly against the wind off the plain. "Stathalkha says that over the previous days the intensity of power at the Tor has tripled. Why should that be happening, unless it is because they now know we are here? Best to deal with them before they strike at us!"
"But the Sun Wheel is not complete," Micail objected. "We have not even had time to determine if it willa""
"Unfinished it may be," Mahadalku interrupted, "but all preliminary tests show it to be fully capable of containing and projecting the necessary vibrations. Ardravanant and Naranshada have both affirmed this conclusion." She spoke in a calm flat tone that discouraged objection. With a sinking heart, Micail looked around at the other priests and priestesses who, in return, discreetly avoided his eye.
No doubt Jiritaren would follow him if he walked out now, and Naranshada had expressed more than a few doubts about the wisdom of what they were doing. Bennurajos and Reualen, perhaps . . . if Micail pressed the point. He felt fairly sure that Galara and the acolytes might follow him as well. But was that the best option?
Tjalan would probably place us under house arrest, and use the threat to the other prisoners to ensure I did nothing to affect the outcome . . . But if I stay . . . He sighed. Then I could end up killing Tiriki myself ! And in that case I should cut my own throat and apologize to her in the afterlife . . . and be damned to the prophecies!
In the days since his meeting with Tiriki, it had often occurred to him that he ought to have gone with her, not meekly returned here. He had told himself then that Tjalan might not have permitted either one of them to leave; he had thought of his duty to the acolytes and the fulfillment of his other vows. Now, though, as he gazed at the sharp silhouettes of the tall stones standing against the blue summer sky, he realized that it was a craftsman's love for his creation that kept him here.
I am like a man whose son falls into evil company. Reason says he must be renounced, but the good father continues to hope that the boy will turn to the right path once more. The henge has such great potential for good . . .
"How does this preserve our traditions?" he tried again. "Tiriki and Chedan have not been charged as hereticsa"we have not declared war. It is simply not legitimate for us to act against our fellow priests in this way! And it is wrong at an even deeper level to give over this kind of power to such a prideful purpose." He gestured at the line of soldiers just outside the ditch and bank that surrounded the circle. It was not clear whether they were there to protect the priests against interference from outside or to keep them in.
"Why should we help Prince Tjalan build his empire?" Micail continued.
"Because that empire will support the new Temple," Ocathrel answered, and the rest seemed to share his exasperation. It occurred to Micail that perhaps he had better stop talking before they all decided he was not just prone to moral misgivings but actually unreliablea"possibly a heretic himself. Then they would take the choice regarding whether he should stay or go out of his hands.
At least Ardral was not present to lend his power to this disaster. When the gong had summoned them that morning, the old adept had pleaded wine-sickness and kept to his quarters. But despite the knowing nods of the chelas, Micail knew that Ardral was rarely ill. Was he merely staying away or going away?
Wearily turning away from Ocathrel and Haladris and the rest, Micail sat in the shadow of one of the sarsen uprights, and let his thoughts return to the events of the night before.
He had gone to Ardral's quarters to plead for his support and found him sorting through parchments. Some of them had been burning merrily in a charcoal brazier beneath the smokehole. That sight alone had been enough to strike Micail speechless for several momentsa"Ardral had been curator of the Temple library at Ahtarrath, after all.
"No, no," the old Guardian had reassured him, "I am just clearing out a few odd notes and poems and personal musings. No ancient secrets, or at least none that I feel any obligation to pass on. One might argue that all my secrets are ancient! But after a lifetime of study, meditation and practicea"all I really know is how little any of us knows." And he had laughed.
Micail remembered the gleam of firelight on aquiline features as Ardral flipped his faintly silvered hair out of his eyes once more.
"Would you like to join me in the last of the teli'ir?" he'd asked then, as if they had been sitting on a gilded terrace, watching the sun set over Ahtarra's harbor or possibly over Atalan itself. Micail had been too nonplussed to do anything but agree.
It had been a pleasant time. They had spoken of many things, most of them amusing. But by the time Micail managed to bring the conversation around to what troubled him, he'd been seeing both Ardral and the firelit room through a perfumed haze. Yet the adept's diction had remained crisp throughout, even if his meaning was sometimes obscure.
"Do you really think my arguments might move Tjalan when yours have not? I am a fine speaker if I do say so myself, but you are his cousin and, moreover, he considers you a close friend." Ardral shook his head. "I admit, I found Princess Chaithala and the children charming, and I enjoyed their company immensely, but the Prince of Alkonath and I have never had much to say to each other beyond the usual pleasantries. And none of them will have much to miss when I am gone."
"Gone?" Micail had stared, wondering if the rumors of illness could possibly be true. Ardral certainly had not looked ill, but then he did not look his age either, and he had been old when Micail's parents were babes in arms. "You are healthy!" he had exclaimed, not sure whether it was a statement or a prayer. Ardral had quirked one eyebrow and Micail flushed in confusion.
"Of course I am. That is why I must go. Every night, every day, Tjalan, or someone, thinks up another question I don't care to answer. I suspect I have been here too long already . . . and I know too many things that man is no longer meant to know."