"O beautiful upon the horizon of the East,
Lift up thy light unto day, O Eastern Star,
Day Star, awaken, arise!
Lord and giver of Life, awakea"
Joy and giver of Light, arisea"
O beautiful upon the horizon of the East,
Day Star, awaken, arise!"
Micail drifted toward consciousness upon the rise and fall of the verses that had begun his days for as long as he could remember. The voices had the purity of youth; was it the acolytes who were singing? He could not quite recall why they were with him, but their presence, and the life-affirming cadences of the song, were protection against the nightmares he had already begun to forget.
He tried to open his eyes, but cool grey cloth covered them. Have I been ill? There was an ache in his chest and behind his eyes . . . He would have lifted his hand and removed the damp cloth, but his arms felt weak and hot.
"Tiriki . . ." He had enough strength to whisper. "Tiriki?" he tried again.
"Don't try to talk." A deft hand smoothed the cloth back from his brow, then lifted his head. "Here's something for you to drink. Easy nowa"" The hard rim of a cup touched his lips. Automatically he swallowed and the liquid, a tart gruel almost leavened by the taste of honey, went down. Something in his chest eased, but the headache remained.
"There you are," came the voice again, as the strong hands gently lowered Micail's head back to his pillow. "That ought to calm you . . ."
He tried to focus on the speaker, but his eyes didn't want to stay open. The voice was tantalizingly familiar, with the accent of his own childhood home, but too low to be Tiriki's. Why is she not here, if I am so ill? He tried to summon the strength to call for her again, but whatever had been in the liquid was dragging him back down into warm darkness. He frowned, breathing in the fresh scent of rain and grassy earth as his confused awareness of the present was overwhelmed by memory.
"The balance is broken!"
"The darkness rises! Dyaus is set free!"
"It is the Cataclysm! Save us, Micail!"
"Save us!"
"Micaila"can you hear me? Wake up, lad. You've lazed here too long!"
Sinewy hands with the dry skin of age grasped his, and the jolt of energy that passed through them shocked him to full consciousness. His eyes flicked open. The man bending over him was tall, with an expressive face and greying hair that fell like unruly feathers across his high brow.
"Ardral!" What came out was a croak, but Micail was too surprised to care. "My lord Ardravanant," he corrected himself, preferring the more correct form in addressing the Seventh Vested Guardian of the Temple of Light at Ahtarrath . . . In theory he and Micail were of equal rank, but the old adept had been a legend since Micail was a child, and to use the nickname seemed presumptuous.
"I like it better the way you said it the first time," advised the Seventh Guardian. "Lately I don't feel at all like a *Knower of the Brightest.' Besides, it begs the question, don't you think? It is bad enough in ceremonies. No, stick with Ardral. Do I go around calling you Osinarmen?"
"That is a point. Buta"" Micail shook his head and coughed. "What are you doing here? For that matter"a"he paused again, but didn't cougha""where are we?"
Ardral's grey eyes narrowed. "You don't remember?"
I don't remember anything, Micail thought; but in the next moment, he did. "We were in the library," he gasped. "You were trying to get a great wooden trunk down the stairs. My friend Jiri and I helped you, but then you ran back inside anda"" His mind was overwhelmed by multiple images: the arguing priests, collapsing pillars, crumbling walls, scrolls scattering like windblown leaves, and the perpetual groaning of the earth, vibrating through stone and bone alike. . . .
"You saved my life," said the adept softly, and again his hands tightened upon Micail's, "although as I recall, at the time I wasn't very thankful."
"You practically broke my nose."
"Yes . . . I'm sorry about that. I don't know what came over me. Didn't I make a lot of very fine speeches about accepting the inevitable? So naturally I was the one who couldn't resist the temptation to try and save one more thinga"even if flying chunks of lava were setting the city afire! Well, I'm glad you could see it was time to get out."
"How did we ever get to the harbor?" Micail whispered, his chest tightening. "I remember the towers fallinga"blocking the waya"" His memory overflowed with distorted pictures: people staggering as Darokha Plaza pitched, the ageless tiled stones suddenly rippling in a horrible wavea"and an old woman falling, trampled by the mob, left lying in the middle of the street like a broken doll.
Micail's fists clenched helplessly as he saw again the red gleam on the roiling waters of the coastline, heard the clattering armor of the elite soldiers Prince Tjalan had sent to find him; and though he struggled not to, he could not keep from seeing, with unbearable clarity, the chaos of shattered cliffs where the harbor should have beena"and where the Crimson Serpent had been moored.
And all the while the ash had been falling, coating land and sea with a foul grey powder, as if all life was dead and he no more than a ghost haunting a broken tomb, the tomb of . . .
"Tiriki!" His voice cracked and he fought for breath. "Where is she?" Coughs tore painfully at his lungs, but he arched upward, flailing. "I must find her, beforea""
But then he felt again the surprising strength in Ardral's hands as the adept murmured a Word of Power that sent Micail spiraling down into sodden dreams once more.
As he drifted in and out of consciousness, he was aware that a series of different hands tended him. Sometimes even the softest touch was intolerable. At other times his friend Jiritaren was with him, or someone else, talking rather urgently about some crisis, lung fever . . . Gradually Micail began to understand that he was in danger, but it did not matter. Tiriki was all that mattered. Micail could not remember how he had lost her, but her absence was a wound through which his life was draining away.
And then there came a moment when he felt her arms around him. I am dying, he thought, and Tiriki has come to bear me home. But she was swearing at him, yelling about a task he had left undone. He felt himself drowning in a mighty tide . . .
He woke to the drumbeat of a drenching rain. That seemed strange; the storm season was past. He took a deep breath and noted that though there was some congestion in his lungs, they no longer pained him.
The bed was unfamiliar, softer than he preferred. Raising his head from the downy pillow, he looked about at a warmly lit room with whitewashed walls and a narrow window. His heart pulsed as he saw a woman standing beside it, looking out at the sea and the storm, but it was not Tiriki. This woman had dark curls, edged with copper where they caught the light.
"Deoris?" he whispered, and as she turned, he saw her golden skin, her huge dark eyes, the adolescent blemish on her nose. . . . Of course it was not Deoris; this was her younger child, Tiriki's half sister. "Galara," he said, more loudly. "At least you're alive!"
"And so are you!" she exclaimed, leaning over him excitedly. "And you are yourself again, aren't you? Thank the Maker! I'd better tell the prince, he'll want to knowa""
Micail began to make sense of his memories. If Prince Tjalan was here, when they found the way to the main harbor blocked he must have taken Micail aboard the Royal Emerald, still safe in the cove, and brought him here . . . wherever here might be. He was about to ask, but could not get the words out before Galara had run from the room. He attempted to sit up, but the effort was too much, and he lay back on the soft bedding, trying a deeper breath.
The door banged against the wall as Prince Tjalan himself strode in. There were a few more strands of silver at his temples than Micail remembered, and a deep line or two around his eyes that had not been there before, but his green linen kilt was as finely pressed as ever, and seeing Micail, his face filled with delight.
"You are awake!" Tjalan threw off his woolen short-cape and sat down upon the stool by the bed, clasping Micail's hands briefly in his own.
"Yes . . . and glad I am to see you. I gather it was you who got me here in one piece?" Micail found it hard to feel thankful, but he had always had warm feelings for Tjalan, and that at least had not changed.
"I am commissioning myself a medal!" Tjalan chuckled. "First I had to wrestle you onto the shipa"no one else would dare! Then when we were about halfway out of the harbor you thought you saw Tirikia"" He stopped himself. "You jumped overboard, and of course you went straight into a floating spar and got smacked on the head! Lucky you didn't drown, and your rescuer with you! That was me too, by the way. But they hauled us both back in somehow. Since thena"between concussion from the head wound and lung fever from the foul water you swallowed, you have been a complete bore, unconscious or raving the entire time. But it was worth a little aggravation to keep you breathing."
"Where is this place?" Micail asked.
"The Hesperidesa"the Isle of Tina"just as you and I intended." Tjalan grinned again. "We have made landfall here in Beleri'in to restock our larders and shake out the kinks, but as soon as you feel fit to travel again, we'll continue up the coast to Belsairath. It's nothing grand, just an old Alkonan trading station from my great-grandfather's time, but with all these refugees, it'll soon be a thriving town!"
"Refugees . . ." Micail shivered, despite the blankets and furs. "So other ships have come in?"
"Oh yes. Not only from Ahtarrath, but there are some from the other islands as well. We saved more of your priesthood than I dared hope for in those last moments when the whole world seemed about to explode. When the road to the harbor was blocked, several of your acolytes made it to the cove. The Royal Emerald was packed full, but she's a good ship, and once we got out of the harbor we weathered the voyage well."
"But there was no worda"" He fought for breath.
"Calm yourself," the prince urged, "my dear friend! We've had no news of Tiriki, no. But ships are still arriving, and some have even sailed past us, no doubt headed to Belsairath as well. She may yet join us. But what good will that be, if you have torn yourself in pieces?"
In the days that followed, Micail began to fill in more gaps in his memory. The house in Beleri'in where they lodged him was one of several belonging to a native merchant who had grown rich on the tin trade. As his strength returned Micail walked in the spacious gardens, breathing in the clean wind that scoured the green foggy hills half visible beyond the garden wall. The sky looked immense, whether it showed itself as a tapestry of shapeless clouds or an expanse of radiant blue.
So this is the new world, he realized, and for a moment his grim mood almost lifted. There is much beauty here . . . but it is cold, very cold. Father Sun, we sing your praises as we have always done. Why will you not warm the earth here? Even the sea wind bears me nothing of you. Must I build your new Temple just to feel a moment's warmth?
He watched constantly for ships, but not until they were leaving to go to Belsairath did he appreciate the beauty of the sea. The harbor was the same clear blue as the sky. In its midst was a small island that separated a cluster of wingbird ships that bobbed in the tide. The largest was Tjalan's ship, the Royal Emerald, her green sails like bright leaves against the darker green of the island.
"The summit of that island is so pointed, it looks man-made," Micail said to Galara, in an attempt to distract his mind from the rocking of the fish-smelling round coracle in which they were being ferried out to the Emerald.
"Maybe so," said the native boy, as a skillful dip of his paddle sent them shooting forward. "Has beacon up top. Light it when tin ships come. But now, no traders," he added sadly.
"Take nothing for granted," advised Micail, thinking of what Tjalan had told him of his plans for this new country. But did it really matter? Was there any point in trying to build a new Atlantis if Tiriki was lost?
He clutched the side of the coracle as the sea grew even more lively, astonished that the boy could govern the motion of so unlikely a craft. But as the oddly pointed islet drew nearer, Micail became aware of another sensation, a kind of subaudible humming that he instinctively associated with the flow of power . . . He touched Galara's shoulder.
"Do you feel it?"
"I feel sick." She looked pale and queasy. He remembered hearing her say that she did not like the sea. That must be why she did not notice the thrumming in the water.
Tiriki would have felt it. Awkwardly he patted Galara's arm and then closed his eyes, swamped by a new wave of sorrow. Without her, I am crippled, he thought. The gods will not want me.
When they came aboard at last, they found the deck of the Royal Emerald swarming with soldiers. Micail had not realized that Tjalan had brought not only his bodyguard, but a contingent of regular guards as well.
The soldiers remained on deck throughout the three days it took to sail north and east along the coast to Belsairath. The cabins below were reserved for noble and priestly passengers such as himself. That first night, however, he encountered only the acolyte Elara. He had been told that she had ended up on Prince Tjalan's ship, but had not seen her until now. Micail, glad to leave her with Galara, went in search of his cabin, where he fell into sleep as a rock into an abyss.
The second day was well advanced when he awoke to the discovery that he shared the cabin with Ardral, who had also let his friend Jiritaren into the room. Jiritaren was not about to allow Micail to wallow in self-pity in his bunk on such a beautiful day.
"You have to admit, Alkonans build good ships," Jiritaren commented as they came on deck, running his hand along the polished wood of the rail. The wind put color into his sallow skin and lifted locks of his lank black hair back from his brow.
"I suppose," said Micail, gazing up at the bravely fluttering green banner whose ring of falcons seemed to flap their golden wings. "After all, here we are."
Jiritaren gave him a troubled look. They had been friends for a long time, and usually did not need to speak to know each other's hearts. After a moment, he put one arm around Micail's shoulder, and raised his other hand to point at the wingbirds that followed them, particularly one a little longer and leaner in construction, with an orange banner at its mast.
"That's the Orange Swift," said Jiritaren, "from Tarisseda! They arrived with a few empty cabins, so some of our people are with them. Good thing, too, or I'd probably be sleeping on deck with the spearmen."
Micail managed something like a smile. "What's that ship?" he pointed.
"Aha"that is the Blue Dolphin. An older ship but solid. There's a gaggle of folks on it, some from our Temple."
"My fellow acolyte Cleta is on the Dolphin, my honored lords," said Elara, moving forward to join them, "with her brother Lanath and Vialmar as well." She looked up at Micail with a smile that seemed rather too warm, considering that except for Damisa, whom he had often seen with Tiriki, he hardly knew the acolytes at all.
But few as they were, strangers or not, they would be the foundation of the new Temple, and they were his responsibility now. He managed to return Elara's smile. She was a pretty girl, old enough not to be flustered by the attention of two senior priests. She was only of middle height, but her features were good, and her curly black tresses, barely secured against the wind with a filigreed hairpin, had a glossy sheen like a raven's wing.
"You are promised to Lanath, are you not?" he murmured. "I am sorry. It must be hard for you to be separated . . . At least Cleta and Vialmar are together."
She lowered her eyes. "All thought of marriage must wait, my lord," she said. "We are far from completing our training. Ia"I wanted to say, it is a great honor to be here, my lords, where I may hope to take instruction directly from you."
To reach the trading port of Belsairath took two days. It lay on the southern coast of the land that the native inhabitants called the "Isle of the Mighty." It had been established when Alkonath first sought supremacy over the trade routes of the Sea Kingdoms, but since then had lingered in obscurity.
As at Beleri'in, a small islet stood a little way offshore from the port, surrounded not by ships at anchor, but by a line of long sandbanks that guarded the shore from storms. As the Royal Emerald headed past it, the soldiers rushed to the side to get a glimpse of their destination. Even Micail felt a faint stirring of curiosity.
He shivered and rewrapped himself in his newly acquired cape of Alkonan green. It was warmly lined, but it felt odd to him to replace his family's ceremonial crimson with this color. But what does it matter? he asked himself. There is neither Ahtarra nor Alkona anymore. Even the gods seem far away . . .
The clouds were drawing in again, foreshadowing rain, and the scene unfolding before him became a mural painted in greys and browns. The low delta at the back of the bay was dotted with pools and reed beds, as if the land had not entirely won its argument with the ocean. . . . He guessed that storms might occasionally rearrange this landscape entirely. He hoped the Alkonans had built their port on solid ground.
Word of their arrival spread fast. He glanced about and saw that most if not all of the passengers had emerged onto the deck. Elara and Galara stood quite close to him, their attention focusing, it seemed, upon the soldiers rather than the view.
A feather floated landward past them, and Micail realized that the tide was on the flow. Straining his eyes, he looked farther inland toward the rising mainland, a dim bulk of thickly forested hills. At their center he could see a single thin streamer of smoke, rising and curling in the wind. Perhaps that is from the port, he thought. What do they call it? Belsairath? "Point something port . . ."
Captain Dantu's voice rang out above the hubbub of passengers, calling out orders. The soldiers went to the other side of the ship to balance it, as the helmsman guided the wingbird's sharp prow through an inlet that opened into a foggy, quiet cove where the river at last made its peace with the sea. A bank of efficient-looking docks had been built out into the harbor, but Micail guessed that even so, at low tide the larger ships would all be aground.
This, then, is journey's end, he thought. A fine place for dying.
Close against the docks stood a palisaded enclosure. Behind it, a string of buildings, at first grey and indistinct, meandered away along the riverbank. Masses of weathered wood, faded paint, and worn-out thatchings suddenly appeared in his vision, and he realized that each building in one way or another reflected the standard Atlantean forms: here an arch, there some balconies, and even, a little way uphill, a newer structure that looked like the beginning of a seven-walled courtyard. The outskirts of the old town were a sprawling expanse of new-looking villas, built in the aristocratic Alkonan style, with much of the building hidden underground. As elsewhere, wood seemed to be the primary material of construction, but the terraces and foundations at least were all stone, ornamented with the usual carvings and painted plaster. The alien mists made everything look vaguely ominous, but he smiled in spite of himself.
The fit of amusement did not last. Rajasta the Wise had said that the new Temple would be built in a new land, but Belsairath looked old, even neglected.
Prince Tjalan had arranged for Micail to stay in an inn on the water, as Micail wished to watch for ships arriving and any news of Tiriki.
Yet before he could rest, Prince Tjalan summoned Micail to a reception at his villa. As he stood in the midst of a brightly dressed throng, he found himself wishing that he had stayed in his bed at the inn.
"Prince Micaila"you are most welcome!" a woman said behind him. "I met you once, that year you spent with Tjalan in Alkona, but of course you would not remember me; I was the merest child then. . . ."
Her voice had that throaty quality that so many found seductive, and her perfume, which Micail perceived even before he turned to see who had spoken, was blended from the most expensive spikenard. In truth, he needed no other senses to recognize Tjalan's wife, Princess Chaithala. Tjalan had told him that she had sailed from Alkonath well before the Sinking, bringing their three children here to safety. But he would have guessed that, too, for her hazel eyes, artfully highlighted by kohl, were wholly unshadowed by the grim memories that haunted all who had watched the old world die.