Marion Zimmer Bradley's Ancestors of Avalon (54 page)

“Well, don’t tell
them
!” Elara laughed. Then she shook her head. “I, for one, would not like to live without them, though. And I suppose if we did not have them to serve as a warning, we women would go astray just as badly on our own.”

She sobered suddenly, remembering Lanath. He had never regained consciousness after the flying stone had struck him, and she was still not sure how she felt about his loss. She had not loved him, but he had always been
there . . .

“Will you go with Tiriki to this Tor she’s been telling us about?” Galara asked. “She is still my guardian, and I suppose I will go where she says, but you are of age.”

I
do
have a choice,
Elara realized suddenly.
For the first time since the Temple chose me, I can decide what
I
want my life to be.
She closed her eyes, and was surprised by a vivid image of the shrine room in Timul’s temple. In memory she gazed from one wall to the next, ending at the image of the Goddess with the sword.
How odd,
she thought then. She had always thought she would serve the Lady of Love, but suddenly she could feel the weight of that sword in her own hand.

“I think I will go back to Belsairath with Timul,” she said slowly. “Lodreimi is getting old, and she will need someone to help her run the Temple there.”

“Perhaps I can visit you,” Galara said wistfully.

“Well, you would be welcome.” Elara spooned up a little tea and grimaced at its bitter flavor, but took the dipper and began to transfer the concoction into the beakers. “Put a little honey in these,” she advised. “Cleta and Jiritaren should be ready for another dose of painkiller about now.”

 

“Do you remember, my love, how you cared for your little feather tree?” Tiriki asked, keeping her voice briskly casual. “It is still alive—indeed, it is flourishing.”

“In this climate? Impossible!”

“Why would I lie? And after living with it for so many years,” she teased, “do you think I could mistake it for anything else? When you come to the Tor you will see. I tell you, Elis has a rare gift when it comes to plants.”

She took Micail’s arm and drew him closer as they continued along the river path. Tiriki had gotten him out of bed the day after her arrival, and each day made him walk farther. This was the first time they had gone outside the compound, though. Imperceptibly he felt himself beginning to relax. His ribs gave a protesting twinge at every movement, but they were only cracked, and would heal.

The greater pain was knowing that people were watching—he could feel their eyes upon him, judging, blaming him for living when so many had died—Stathalkha, Mahadalku, Haladris, Naranshada, even poor Lanath—so many. And there might yet be other victims. Jiritaren, he was told, was not nearly as well as he looked. Micail’s guilt was ever more piercing, perhaps, because his own injuries had kept him from sharing the first, anguished mourning with the other survivors. Now, they were trying to get on with their lives, while he was still trying to find a reason for living.

As they neared the river they heard children’s voices and found a group of native boys and girls playing in the shallows, their sun-browned skins almost the same shade as their hair.

“Ah, just to see them makes me miss Domara more. When you come to the Tor you will see,” said Tiriki again.

“When I come to the Tor?” he echoed. “You seem so sure that I should do so. But when I have brought such bad fortune to the people here, perhaps—”

“You
are
coming home with me! I am not going to raise your child alone!” she exclaimed. “Ever since she learned you were alive Domara has been asking about you. She is only a girl, not a son who could inherit your powers, but—”

His hand shot out to grip her suddenly. “Don’t . . . say . . . that!” he groaned. “Do you think that magic matters to me?” For a moment the harsh rasp of his breathing was the only sound.

“Everyone assures me that if you had not been able to wield those powers,” Tiriki said evenly, “the damage done by the Sun Wheel would have been far more terrible.”

“I thought I had the strength to contain the forces Haladris was using the stones to raise—that is why I let him start,” he whispered. “This disaster came from my pride no less than Tjalan’s. My powers have led
only
to trouble! Because the Black Robes tried to take them, back in the Ancient Land, my father died and Reio-ta was almost destroyed. And I—I all but gave them away! Better they die with me.”

“That is a discussion for another day—” Tiriki smiled. “You should have seen your daughter, though, standing there with feet planted and her fists on her hips,
insisting
that she should go along and help find her father. Yes, she has inherited more from you than magic. Only you can teach her how to deal with such pride.”

Micail found himself smiling as, for the first time, he thought of his daughter not as a simple abstraction, nor even an inspiration, but as a real person, someone to teach, to learn from . . . to love.

 

“Your people are healing,” said the Queen of Azan. It was not quite a question. She had invited Tiriki and Micail to take the noon meal with her beneath the oak trees by the village, where a cool breeze off the river balanced the heat of the sun.

Micail nodded. “Yes, those who will recover have mostly done so.”

Tiriki’s gaze sought the new mound that the Ai-Zir had raised over those who had died. She suppressed an impulse to grip Micail’s arm and reassure herself again that he was not among them. She had wanted this formal meeting to wait until Micail was stronger, but it was time to begin planning for the future.

“And what will you do now?” Khayan asked, with a sidelong glance at the priestess Ayo that Tiriki could not interpret.

“Our wounded are almost well enough to travel. Many of our people wish to return to Belsairath,” Micail replied. “Tjalan’s second-in-command has taken charge of the surviving soldiers, and he can be trusted, I think, to keep them out of trouble and deal with whatever ships may pass through there. But almost all of the priesthood will travel with us to the Lake lands.”

“There are some,” said the queen, with a swift glance at the shaman Droshrad, who squatted in the shade of one of the trees, “who have suggested that you should all be slain and allowed to go nowhere. But we have taken your magic weapons, or as many of them as we could find, at least. With them in the hands of
our
warriors, your remaining soldiers are not enough to challenge us.”

That news would have disturbed Tiriki more if she had not known that no matter who possessed them, within a few decades at most, the orichalcum plating on the Atlantean arrows, spears, and swords would begin to decay, and any advantage they might give would be gone.
And also,
she thought with a smile,
we will not need them.
The people at the Tor had another kind of protection.

“Prince Tjalan and some of the others did not understand that we must learn the ways of this new land, not impose our own,” said Tiriki firmly. “But in the Lake lands, as Anet will tell you, we live in peace with the marsh folk. Indeed, we are becoming one tribe.”

“It is so,” agreed Ayo. “My sister Taret speaks well of all you have done there.”

Tiriki lifted an eyebrow at this evidence of the link between all the wisewomen of the tribes. In Ayo, as in Taret, she sensed the mark of Caratra. She had no difficulty in accepting the Sacred Sister as a priestess whose status, though different, was equal to her own.

“You promised glory for King Khattar’s tribe,” Droshrad growled unexpectedly, “but you lied. You sought to make us slaves to your power.”

“That is true,” Micail sighed, “but surely we have endured our own punishment. Let the lives we have lost be payment for the harm we have done.”

“Easy words,” the shaman growled, but he subsided at a glance from the queen.

“But why these things were done—that is the thing I do not understand,” Ayo said then. “Was it conquest only? I do not feel that desire in you.”

“Because it is not there,” Tiriki put in, when it was clear that Micail either could not or would not answer. “You must understand. From childhood we knew our homeland faced destruction. But there was a prophecy that my husband would found a new Temple in a new land.”

“But I did not understand,” Micail said heavily. “I thought it must be a great and splendid building such as we had on Ahtarrath and in the Ancient Land. But I was mistaken. I think now that what we are meant to establish is a tradition—”

“A tradition,” said Tiriki, completing his thought, “in which the wisdom of the Temple of Light—and it is great, though we have given you little reason to think so until now—is joined with the earth power of those who live in this land.”

Ayo sat up straighter, eyeing them intently. “Does that mean that you will teach us your magic?”

“If that is what you wish, yes. Send us a few of your clever young women and we will train them, if the Sacred Sisters will agree to teach some of our own.”

“And your young men, too,” added Micail, meeting Droshrad’s scowl. “But you will have to send food with them—” He patted Tiriki’s shoulder. “My wife needs your good beef and bread to put some meat on her bones!”

“It is true that our resources are meager . . .” said Tiriki. “In the vales around the Tor, there is little solid land for farming, and it is a hard trial to be continuously gathering wild food.”

“It is true,” Khayan-e-Durr said, smiling. “The fields and pastures of the Ai-Zir are rich. If the Sacred Sisters agree, we will ensure the children we send you do not starve.”

“Young Cleta’s leg is still healing,” said Ayo thoughtfully. “Let her stay with us and send another of your maidens to join her. We will allow some of our young priestesses to join you in return.”

“What about Vialmar?” asked Micail. “He is Cleta’s betrothed, after all.”

“That one!” grunted Droshrad. “He pisses himself with fear when I look at him . . .”

“If he thinks he is needed to look after Cleta, he will find his courage fast enough,” said Micail.

“Maybe—” The shaman still did not look convinced, but he nodded at last. “I have a nephew. Maybe you can teach him something. He only makes trouble here! He thinks the sun talks to him.”

 

The air throbbed as if the plains of Azan had become a vast drumskin, vibrating to the rhythm beat out by the feet of the Ai-Zir. Even the stars seemed to blink in time to the rhythm, their sparkling reflected in the leaping fires below. Damisa had never seen anything like it—certainly not in the modest celebrations that were all that the marsh folk could manage—but it was more than that. There was something here that had not been evident even in the four-day festivals she had known as a child in Alkonath. She fussed with the sling that immobilized her shoulder, trying to make it more comfortable. At least the dizziness that had followed her concussion was mostly gone.

“If it wasn’t for us, they wouldn’t even know the exact date of the summer solstice,” said Cleta sourly, as they watched the dancers circling the bonfire. Damisa glanced down at the other girl’s splinted leg. She supposed it must be hurting again.
Between us,
she thought,
we might just about put together one whole priestess.

On the far side of the bonfire they had heaped up a low mound where King Khattar sat in state on a bench covered with the hide of a red bull. Even the firelight could not make him look healthy. Damisa almost sympathized, but she had been assured that in time
her
shoulder would heal. Khattar was still acknowledged as high king, but it was clear that the power was passing to the nephew who sat beside him.

Already Damisa had learned more than she had ever wanted to know about tribal politics, which were beginning to remind her uncomfortably of the palace intrigues she had heard about on Alkonath as a child. It all made clear, she thought, the fact that the differences between the Atlanteans and the Ai-Zir were not so very real.

“Here come our valiant protectors now,” said Cleta, as Vialmar and Reidel threaded their way among the dancers toward them, a strangely painted beaker gripped in each hand.

“Cleta,” said Damisa, with raised eyebrows, “you are slipping! I do believe that was a joke.” The other girl weakly returned her smile, but said nothing; both of them knew that Vialmar’s thigh had been deeply gashed by the first of the flying stone fragments. He walked with a limp even now. And she remembered quite clearly that when the power exploded from the henge it had been
she
who had protected Reidel. As he handed her a beaker she was still wondering what madness had compelled her to do so.

“It’s called mead,” said Vialmar with enthusiasm. “Give it a try—it’s pretty good.”

Damisa took a cautious sip. The liquor was sweet and tasted very faintly like teli’ir, but fortunately for her head, did not seem to be nearly so strong. Still it seemed strange to be sitting here drinking when Tjalan and so many others were gone.

They sat talking for a time until Cleta had to admit that her leg was giving her a lot of pain. Vialmar, who was tall enough to do so, simply picked her up in his arms and, limping only a little, slowly carried her back to the compound, leaving Reidel and Damisa alone. Suddenly restless, she stood up.

“This stuff is going to my head. I need to walk a little while.”

“I’ll walk with you,” said Reidel, rising in turn.

She flushed, remembering what had happened the last time she accepted his escort from a celebration, but she knew it would not be wise to wander alone in such a crowd. There were not a few among the natives who had no love left for the Atlanteans. Silent, she let him lead her toward the path by the river. His hand was strong and warm, callused from labor, but then her own was not exactly soft and ladylike either.

“I have not thanked you for my life,” he said as the tumult of the festival faded behind them. “I was mad to think I could have done anything to stop the Working. I never imagined that you—”