Ancestors Of Avalon - Ancestors of Avalon Part 5
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Ancestors of Avalon Part 5

"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 youa""

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 spota"or noa"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 herea""

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

"You and Micail were no more than children"a"Deoris smileda""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 yearsa"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, "Ia"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 Rivedaa"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 todaya"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 seekinga"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 awaya""

"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 othersa"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 fatea"then my guilt is no less."

"Mothera"" 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 sincea""

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, Unclea"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 shooka"he was trying to break his chains. And Ia"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 thema""

"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 fortha"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 childrena"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.

Four.

Although the long day had been unseasonably cool, the sunset brought winds that were warm and an ominously hot night. Most of those who actually tried to sleep tossed and turned in damp frustration. The city that had been so quiet by day became the opposite that night, as its people wandered the streets and parks. Perhaps surprisingly, few were actually looting the deserted houses and shops; the rest seemed to be searching, but for what, none seemed to knowa"a cooler place to rest. Perhaps the true goal was to achieve that exhaustion of the body that alone can give peace to the fevered brain.

In their rooms at the top of the palace, Tiriki sat watching her husband sleep. It was several hours after midnight, but rest eluded her. They had been up late making final preparations to sail in the morning. Then she had sung until Micail fell at last into an uneasy slumber, but there was no one to sing her to sleep. She wondered if her mother, who might have done so, was wakeful as well, waiting for what must come.

It does not matter, she told herself, looking around the room where she had known so much joy. I will have the rest of my life to sleep . . . and weep.

Beyond the open doors to the terrace the night sky was red. In that lurid light she could see the silhouette of Micail's feather tree, which she had rescued and repotted. It was foolish, she knew, to see in that small plant a symbol of all the beautiful and fragile things that must be abandoned. On a sudden impulse she rose, found a scarf to wrap around the pot and the slender branches, and tucked it into the top of her bag. It was an act of faith, she realized. If she could preserve this little life, then perhaps the gods would be equally merciful to her and those she loved.

Except for the light that burned before the image of the Great Mother in the corner of the bedchamber, all the lamps had gone out, but she could still see the disorder in the room. The bags they had filled to take with them stood next to the door, waiting for the last frantic farewell.

The fitful flicker behind the veil of the shrine focused her gaze. Ahtarra had many temples and priesthoods, but only in the House of Caratra were a high altar and sanctuary consecrated in the Mother's name. And yet, thought Tiriki with a faint smile, the Goddess received more worship than any of the gods. Even the humblest goatherd's hut or fisherman's cottage had a niche for Her image, and if there was no oil to spare for a lamp, one could always find a spray of flowers to offer Her.

She rose and drew aside the gauze that veiled the shrine. The lamp within was alabaster, and it burned only the most refined of oils, but the ivory image, only a handspan high, was yellowed and shapeless with age. Her aunt Domaris had brought it with her from the Ancient Land, and before that, it had belonged to her mother, the legacy of a lineage of foremothers whose origins predated even the records of the Temple.

From the lamp she lit a sliver of pine and held it to the charcoal that was always laid ready on a bed of sand in the dish beside the lamp.

"Be ye far from me, all that is profane." As she murmured the ancient words, she felt the familiar dip of shifting consciousness. "Be far from me, all that lives in evil. Stand afar from the print of Her footsteps and the shadow of Her veil. Here I take refuge, beneath the curtain of the night and the circle of Her own white stars."

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The charcoal had begun to glow. She picked up a few grains of incense and scattered them across it, feeling awareness shift further as the pungent sweet smoke spiraled into the air.

Bowing her head, she touched her fingers to her brow and her lips and breast. Then her hands lifted in a gesture of adoration so familiar it had become involuntary.

"Lady . . ." the word died on her lips. The time for asking that this fate should pass was gone. "Mother . . ." she tried again, and whatever words might have followed were borne away by a tide of emotion.

And in that moment, she became aware that she was not alone.

"I am the earth beneath your feet . . ." The Goddess spoke within.

"But the island is being destroyed!" A panicked part of Tiriki's soul objected.

"I am the burning flame . . ."

"The flame will be drowned by the waves!"

"I am the surging sea . . ."

"Then you are chaos and destruction!" Tiriki's soul protested.

"I am the night and the circling stars . . ." came the calm reply, and Tiriki's soul clung to that certainty.

"I am all that is, that has been, that will be, and there is no power that can separate you from Me . . ."

And for a moment outside time, Tiriki knew that it was true.

When she returned to awareness of her surroundings, the incense had ceased to burn and the charcoal was grey. But as the lamp flickered, it seemed to her that the image of the Mother was smiling.

Tiriki took a deep breath and reached out to lift the image from its stand. "I know that the symbol is nothing, and the reality is all," she whispered, "but nonetheless I will take you with me. Let the flame continue to burn until it becomes one with the mountain's fire."

She had just finished wrapping the image and tucking it into her bag when the chimes at the doorway rang faintly. She ran to the entry, afraid Micail would wake. A few swift steps brought her to the door, where she waved the messenger back out into the hall with her finger at her lips.

"Beg pardon, Lady," he began, red-faced.

"No, " she sighed as she cinctured her robe, remembering the orders she had left. "I know you would not come without need. What brings you?"

"You must come to the House of the Twelve, Lady. There is troublea"they will listen to you!"

"What?" She blinked. "Has something happened to Gremos, their guardian?" Tiriki frowned. "It is her duty toa""

"Beg pardon, Lady, but it seems that the Guardian of the Twelve isa"gone."

"Very well. Wait a moment for me to dress, and I will come."

"Be stilla"" Tiriki pitched her voice to carry over the babble of complaint and accusation. "You are the hope of Atlantis! Remember your training! Surely it is not beyond you all to give me a coherent tale!"

She glared around the circle of flushed faces in the entryway to the House of the Falling Leaves and let her mantle slip from her shoulders as she sat down. Her gaze fixed on Damisa; red-faced, the girl came forward. "Very well then. You say that Kalaran and Vialmar got some wine. How did that happen, and what did they do?"

"Kalaran said that wine would help him sleep." Damisa paused, her eyes briefly flicking closed as she ordered her thoughts. "He and the other boys went down to the taverna at the end of the road to get some. There was no one there, so they brought two whole amphorae back with them and drank all of it, as far as I can tell."

Tiriki turned her gaze to the three young men sitting on a bench by the door. Kalaran's handsome face was marred by a graze on one cheek, and water dripped down his companions' necks from wet hair, as if someone had tried to sober them up by plunging their heads into the fountain.

"And did it put you to sleep?"

"For a while," Vialmar said sullenly.

"He got sick and puked," said Iriel brightly, then fell silent beneath Damisa's glare. At twelve, Iriel was the youngest of the Twelve, fair-haired and mischievous, even now.