The seeress drew back her veils. In the intense brilliance of the Stone’s light it was not difficult to recognize Alyssa, her black hair hanging loose around her shoulders, her eyes already dilated by trance. With strange, half-bowing steps, she moved into the altar’s radiance.
The singers watched nervously as the seeress rested her fingertips upon the Stone. Translucent patterns of power pooled and eddied within. Alyssa stiffened, but instead of retreating, she moved even nearer.
‘It is…it is so,’ she whispered. ‘One with the Stone am I. What it knows, ye shall know. Let the sacred song bear us to the doors of Fate.’
As she spoke, the singers began to hum softly. Micail’s voice soared in the cadence of Command, calling the seeress by her Temple name.
‘Neniath, seeress, dost thou know me?
I, Osinarmen, do address thee.
Part us from dreams as thou dost wake
By the answer thou wilt make.’
‘I hear.’ The voice was quite different from Alyssa’s, sharp and ringing. ‘I am here. What wouldst thou know?’
‘Speak if it please thee, and we shall attend.’ Micail sang the formal phrase in one sustained exhalation, but in his voice, Tiriki could hear the strain. ‘We come because the Stone has called us, whispering secretly in the night.’
A moment passed. ‘The answer, thou dost already know,’ the seeress murmured. ‘The question lies before the truth. Yet the door that was cast open will not be shut. Stone upon stone rises higher, doomed to fall. The forests fill with tinder. The power which has waited at the heart of the world shifts…and it hungers.’
Tiriki felt a momentary unsteadiness, but could not tell if it came from beneath the flooring stones, or from her own heart. She looked to Micail, but he stood frozen, his face a grimacing mask.
Reio-ta forced out words. ‘Darkness has broken loose before,’ he said with grim concentration, ‘and always, it has been contained. What must we do this time to bind it?’
‘Can you do aught but sing again while silence grows?’ Alyssa shook with unexpected, bitter laughter; and this time the earth shuddered with her.
A ripple of fright shook the singers. They cried out as one, ‘We are servants of Light Unfailing! The Darkness can never prevail!’
But the tremors did not cease. The torches flickered out. Scarlet lightnings shot from the Stone. For a moment Tiriki thought the cavern around them was groaning, but it was Alyssa’s throat from which those horrific sounds came.
The seeress was speaking, or trying to, but the words came garbled and unintelligible. Fighting their dread, the singers inched closer to Alyssa, straining to hear; but the seeress shrank away from them, arms flailing against the Stone.
‘It climbs!’ Her shrieks echoed far beyond the circular chamber. ‘The foul flower! Blood and fire! YOU ARE TOO LATE!’
As the echoes diminished, the strength faded from the taut body of the seeress. Only Micail’s swift movement prevented her from falling.
‘Take her—’ Reio-ta gasped. ‘Mesira, go with them! We will f-finish here—’
Nodding, Micail bore the seeress from the chamber.
The alcove by the entrance to the shrine where they brought the seeress seemed strangely quiet. While the earth beneath them had finally stilled, Tiriki’s spirit was still shaken. As she entered, her acolyte Damisa, who had waited here with the other attendants during the ceremony, looked up with anxious green eyes.
Micail pressed past her, touching Tiriki’s hand in a swift caress that was more intimate than an embrace. Eyes met in an unspoken assurance – I am here…I am here. We will survive, though the heavens fall.
From the chamber beyond came a babble of voices.
‘How are they?’ murmured Micail, with a nod toward the sound.
Tiriki shrugged, but held on to his hand. ‘Half of them are assuring one another that we did not understand Alyssa’s words, and the others are convinced that Ahtarra is about to fall into the sea. Reio-ta will deal with them.’ She looked at Alyssa, who lay upon a bench with Mesira beside her. ‘How is she?’
The face of the seeress was pale, and the long hair which this morning had shone like a raven’s wing was now brindled with streaks of grey.
‘She sleeps,’ Mesira said simply. In the soft light that came through the doorway, the healer’s face showed all its years. ‘As for her waking…it will be some time, I believe, before we know whether this day’s work has harmed her. You may as well go. I think we have received all the answers we are going to get. My chela is fetching a litter, that we may take her back to the Healers Hall. If there is any change, I will send word.’
Micail had already removed his vestments and slipped the emblem of his rank beneath the neck of his sleeveless tunic. Tiriki folded her veil and outer robe and handed them to Damisa. ‘Shall we too call for bearers?’ she asked.
Micail shook his head. ‘Are you up to walking? I need to feel the touch of honest daylight on my skin.’
The hot bright air of the outdoors was a blessing, baking the chill of the underground chambers from their bones. Tiriki felt the tightness easing from her neck and shoulders, and lengthened her steps to keep up with her husband’s longer stride. Through the red and white stone columns of the Temple that marked the entrance to the underground shrine, she glimpsed a string of roofs tiled in blue. Farther down the slope, a scattering of newly built domes in cream and red were set amid the gardens of the city. Beyond them, the glittering sea stretched away to infinity.
As they emerged from the portico, the sounds and smells of the city rose around them – barking dogs and crying babies, merchants calling out their wares, the spicy smell of the seafood stew that was a local favorite, and the less salubrious odors from a nearby sewer. The fires started by last night’s quake had been put out, and the damage was being dealt with. The destruction had been less than they had feared. Indeed, fear was now their greatest enemy. Even the stinks were an affirmation of ordinary life, reassuring after their confrontation with the uncanny power of the Stone.
Perhaps Micail felt the same. At any rate, he was leading her the long way around, away from the tall buildings of the Temple complex and down through the marketplace, instead of following the white-paved Processional Way that led to the palace. The gleaming flanks of the Three Towers were hidden as they turned down a side street that led toward the harbor, where shopkeepers haggled with customers as they would on any normal day. They attracted a few looks of admiration, but no one pointed or stared. Without their ritual robes, she and Micail looked like any ordinary couple doing errands in the marketplace, though they were taller and fairer than most of the people of the town. And had anyone considered troubling them, the decision in Micail’s strong features and the energy in his stride would have been deterrent enough.
‘Are you hungry?’ she asked. They had fasted for the ritual, and it was now close to noon.
‘What I really want is a drink,’ he responded with a grin. ‘There used to be a taverna near the harbor that served good wine – not our local rough red, but a respectable vintage from the land of the Hellenes. Don’t worry – the food will not disappoint you, either.’
The taverna had an open loggia shaded by trellised vines. Around its edges grew the crimson lilies of Ahtarrath. Their delicate fragrance scented the air. Tiriki tipped back her head to allow the breeze from the harbor to stir her hair. If she turned, she could see the slopes of the Star Mountain – the dormant volcano that was the island’s core, shimmering in the heat-haze. Down the slope there was a band of forest,