Marion Zimmer Bradley's Ancestors of Avalon (22 page)

“So I had heard, and that is one reason why you are doubly welcome here . . . But this Temple is not dedicated to Ni-Terat, but to Caratra.”

Elara looked up in surprise. “But—are they not the same?”

“Are you the same child who was taken into that Temple?” Timul asked lightly.

“Of course,” Elara began, and then shook her head. “Oh. The answer, I suppose, is both yes and no. I remember being that child, but I am very different now . . .”

“And the Goddess changes too.” The hard features of the archpriestess grew softly radiant as she continued. “Only to men does she always appear as Ni-Terat, the Veiled One, for to men her clearest truths remain mysterious. But within the Temple, those mysteries are revealed, and so we call her always Caratra, the Nurturer.”

“But I was taught that Caratra was the daughter of Ni-Terat and Manoah,” said Cleta. “How can she be a mother as well?”

Elara lifted one eyebrow. “I suppose, in the usual way! How do you think that
you
came into the world?” She grinned.

“I know where babies come from, thank you!” Cleta flushed. “I am
trying
to understand the theology!”

“Of course you are,” put in Timul, though she, too, had to suppress a smile. “Drink your tea and I will try to explain it, but do not be surprised if this is not quite the way you have heard the story before. When we travel, we often arrive at new points of view as well as at new lands. But in ancient times the Queen of the Earth was called the Phoenix, because with the turning of time, she fades and is renewed.”

“Like the double-faced statue in the great square in Ahtarra?” asked Cleta.

“Exactly—” Timul agreed.

Elara grinned. “But is the statue of Ni-Terat or Banur?” She paused. “What, did you never hear
that
old joke?” she went on as Cleta stared at her in incomprehension. “Cleta, you are impossible!”

“But what is the answer?” the younger girl asked.

Timul was smiling broadly now. “The answer, my child, is yes. That is the Mystery. All the gods are one god, and all the goddesses are one goddess, and there is one initiator. Surely, even in the Temple of Light, they taught you
that. . . .
”

“Of course!” said Elara. “But—I was always given to understand that it meant we should seek past forms and images to that which lies beyond them all.”

“The essence of the gods is beyond our comprehension, except for those moments when the spirit takes wings—” Timul looked from one girl to the other.

Elara bowed her head, remembering a moment in her childhood when she had stood watching the sun sink into the sea, straining for something she felt just beyond her grasp. And then, at the moment of greatest splendor, the door had suddenly opened, and for a moment she had felt as though she were one with the sky and the earth. Cleta also nodded, and Elara wondered what memory had come into her mind.

“But we still make statues—” Cleta brought them back to awareness of the present once more.

“We do, because we are in mortal bodies surrounded by physical forms. The Deep Mind speaks a language that uses symbols, not words. No amount of
talking
about the Goddess can communicate as much as one lovely image.”

“That still does not answer my question about Caratra,” Cleta said stubbornly.

“I was wandering, wasn’t I?” Timul shook her head. “Forgive me. The women here are true daughters of the Goddess, but except for Lodreimi, they do not have the training to discuss theology.”

“Caratra,” Elara repeated, with a sidelong grin for Cleta.

“It is all a matter of levels, you see,” Timul replied. “At the highest level, there is only One, unmanifest, ungendered, all-encompassing, self-sufficient. But when there is only Being, there is no action.”

“And that is why we speak of God and Goddess,” said Cleta. “That much I know. The One becomes Two, and the Two interact to bring spirit into manifestation. The female force awakens the male, he impregnates her, and she gives birth to the world. . . .”

“In each land the gods are different. Some peoples have only a few gods while others worship many. In the Sea Kingdoms, we worshipped four,” continued Timul.

“Nar-Inabi, Lord of the Sea and the Stars, to whom we prayed to bring us through the dark night when Ahtarrath fell,” whispered Elara.

“And Manoah, Lord of Day, whom we honor in the Temple of Light,” Cleta agreed.

“But also Four-Faced Banur, who both preserves and destroys, and Ni-Terat, who is the earth and the Dark Mother of All,” Elara said.

“In Atlantis all we saw of the earth were islands, and so Ni-Terat remained veiled.” Timul reached down to touch the packed earth floor in reverence. “Here,” she said, straightening, “it is otherwise. This place is also an island, but so great that if you go inland you can travel for days with neither sight nor sound of the sea. And so we remember another story. In the Temple of the Goddess it is said that the Age of the Goddess is coming, but this is not something we speak of with outsiders, for too many of them would see any diminution of the primacy of Manoah as a rebellion against the Light itself. . . .”

“What does that have to do with the Temple that the priests are going to build?” asked Cleta, setting down her tea.

Timul’s face grew darker. “I hope very little. The Goddess needs no temples of stone. Indeed, She may be honored
more
fitly in a garden or a holy grove. The cult of the Great Mother flourished in this land long ago, and there are still some among the natives who can rightly be called priestesses. It is my hope to find them and build on that ancient allegiance . . . It will not matter what the priesthood does then.”

Elara lowered her eyes to her bowl and took another sip of tea.
And if it does come to a serious conflict of interest,
she asked herself,
where will my loyalties lie?

Still deep in thought, she followed the archpriestess through the door that led into the shrine.

The space was all in darkness, save for a single lamp flickering upon the altar. When her eyes became accustomed to the masses of shadow, Elara observed that the walls were frescoed with images that seemed to move in the subtly shifting light.

“The four powers we honor are a little different here,” whispered Timul. “Behold—”

On the eastern wall the Goddess was pictured as a maiden dancing among flowers. The southern wall bore a mural of Caratra as Mother, enthroned with a laughing child upon her knee and all the fruits of the earth around her. In the west was the familiar representation of Ni-Terat, veiled with grey mystery, crowned with stars; but the north wall set Elara’s heart to pounding, for there the Goddess was shown standing with sword in hand, and her face was a skull.

Elara shut her eyes, unable to bear that implacable regard.

“The Maiden, the Mother, and the Wisewoman are the faces of the Goddess that all women know,” said Timul quietly. “We honor Caratra as the source of life, but we who are priestesses must accept and revere both of Ni-Terat’s faces as well, for it is through Her judgment that we will pass in order to be reborn.”

It is true,
thought Elara, eyes still closed.
I can still feel the Goddess looking at me.
But even as that awareness passed through her mind she felt the power that surrounded her changing, warming, holding her like the arms of her mother.

“Now you understand,”
came a thought that was not her own.
“But do not be afraid, for in darkness and in light, I am here.”

T
o those who had relished the sultry noon-tides of an Ahtarran summer, the light of the new land seemed always less gold than silver, just as, for a true Atlantean, the warmest of these northern waters would always evoke a shiver. But none could have denied that a change had come, bringing the marshlands to ever more vibrant life. The refugees welcomed every lengthening minute of light. Even if the sky would never achieve the deep turquoise blue that had crowned Atlantis, still no meadow of the old world could have matched the vivid green of these hills.

For Tiriki, the luxuriant growth seemed one with her own fertility. As the hawthorn bloomed in the copses and primroses opened their glowing petals beneath the trees, her own body rounded and her face grew rosy in the sun. With the fruits of the woodland she ripened, the child within her growing with a vigor unknown in her previous pregnancies, and she gave thanks to Caratra the Nurturer.

The coming of Micail’s child renewed her hope, and new hopes were sparked in the acolytes as well. Tiriki’s child became their link to the future, their talisman of survival. They found excuses to visit her, and gossiped among themselves over every tiny change. Iriel bubbled and cooed and fretted; Elis cooked and cleaned for Tiriki at the slightest opportunity; and Damisa became like a solicitous shadow, except when she was annoyed. Tiriki accepted it all with good grace—indeed, she would have been completely happy—only sometimes in the night she woke weeping, because Micail, who should have shared her joy, was lost, and she knew she must bear and raise the child alone.

 

There was a spot on the bank where willow trees made a whispering enclosure by the rushing river. It had become a retreat where the senior clergy could gather; warm sunlight still fell dappled through the leaves, strong enough to sparkle in Alyssa’s grizzled hair.

“One is lost . . . one is found . . . many tread the sacred round . . . from the hill unto the plain . . . and two will be one once again . . .” The seeress’s voice trailed to silence, and she smiled, eyes focused on nothing. Chedan watched her, wondering whether this time there would be some significance to her meanderings.

With an effort, he kept his features serene as he gestured to Liala to fill the seeress’s bowl with tea. Oracles, the mage reminded himself, were problematic enough when delivered in a properly prepared setting, in response to specific questions. But although in the months since their arrival, the Omphalos Stone, wrapped in silk and enclosed in its own shelter of stone near the hut Alyssa and Liala shared, had been quiescent, Alyssa had begun to drift in and out of the prophetic state without warning, as if she had been uprooted not only from Ahtarrath but from ordinary reality.

The scent of mint and lemongrass filled the air as Liala poured tea from an earthenware beaker into four carven beechwood bowls.

“It is just as I was saying. . . .” Tiriki paused to accept a bowl of her own. “We must never forget that our lives are not only our own. Before, there were always the rules of the Temple to guide us. Now it is our own feet that create the path, and we must be prepared to see them falter from time to time.” She paused again, and Chedan knew she was thinking about Maleara, the older Blue Robe priestess, who had attempted to hang herself the night before.

“I believe Malaera has not completely lost her way,” Tiriki continued, “although we will have to keep watch on her for a while. She is confused and heartsick, and who among us has not felt something similar? Worse, she suffers from aching joints, so there is little for her to do that does not cause her actual pain.”

“I don’t like to say it,” Liala muttered, “but the biggest actual pain around here is her. We’ve all lost our friends and family! Does she have to gloom about it
all
the time?”

“Evidently so,” said Chedan calmly. “Perhaps she is moved by the gods, to remind us that not everyone will easily let go of their lost loves and hopes. I am told Malaera is one who has never concealed her emotions. Who are we to require that she do so now?”

“I think her despair will pass,” Tiriki repeated. “More than most, maybe, she seems to understand that our mission here demands more of us than simple survival . . .” She cast an uneasy glance at Alyssa, but the seeress seemed absorbed in savoring the pleasant scent of her tea.

“If we are to establish the new Temple, it must be
soon
,” Tiriki continued, “or in a generation, two at most, our children will be absorbed into the local population, and our purpose lost. I have not become an oracle, but I have read enough history to know that it has happened before.”

Chedan nodded. “The first generation of shipwreck survivors remember that their ancestors came from beyond the ocean; a century on, their grandchildren often say the
ocean
is their ancestor, and make offerings to it.”

“Hah,” snorted Liala. “I’m less concerned about the future than what is going on right now. I am grateful that so many of us were saved, but I could wish male and female priests had arrived in more equal numbers. There’s you and all of us, and Kalaran and all those girls. Don’t you think we are more than a little out of balance here?”

“What you say is so.” Tiriki sounded faintly surprised. “I really had not felt it as a problem before now. The energy of the Tor itself is so very balanced—”

“A single rising peak,” Alyssa crooned, her face half turned from them, “an earthly spark, guarding three springs and six caves, and so many more hearts. Shining, shining, shining, shining. Never mind the dark.”