4
The Arrival
Kyra sat apart from her companions and composed herself. She knew that the most crucial part of the process that Maal had taught her was to forget herself as ‘Kyra’ completely, and ‘open’ herself to the influences from deep within herself and from the universe, the influences that were always present but not always noticed. As the trick to use upon her unruly ‘surface’ mind, she chose this time the flight of a black bird she had noticed in the sky, circling round and round, round and round, in a perfect and harmonious arc. She followed it with her eyes for some time, and then closed them, following it still, but now as a projection of her mind. Round and round the black bird went until she was aware of nothing else. Faint sounds that had been rising from the valley, the rustle of grass as Karne moved about impatiently, the chattering of nearby sparrows, faded. She heard nothing, felt nothing, thought nothing, saw nothing but, in the inner recesses of her mind, the circling of the black bird. For all she knew it might have long since ceased to circle in the sky that Karne and Fern could see.
It existed now only within herself.
Gradually she let the image go, the black bird fade, until nothing was in her mind but a kind of readiness, an emptiness that was waiting to be filled.
Maal had warned her that at this time she must be particularly careful not to have any preconceptions. She must wait in readiness, expecting nothing. She was not waiting for something she already knew, but for something ... she knew not what.
So she sat. Very still.
And after a while it seemed to her she was not sitting on the grass any more, but was drifting upwards, as gently as a gliding bird on a current of air. She could see everything below her in perfect clarity and detail. She seemed to imprint the pattern of it on her consciousness and knew she would never forget a single detail of it.
Then she felt herself turning as the black bird had turned, arcing slowly and with dignity at first and then gradually going faster and faster until the whole scene was spinning and blurring. She could see the landscape now as nothing but a series of swirling circles.
The air above them seemed to whirl and spin in the same way and she found herself caught in a downward spiral to land in the greatest circle of them all.
As she touched earth, all movement ceased and she was alone in stillness surrounded by giant standing stones and giant ramparts of earth.
She thought she had her eyes open and was truly standing there, but to Fern and Karne she was still sitting cross-legged at the crossing of the two paths, in silence, with her eyes closed.
She looked around her and could see no one. The black bird she had watched was perched on one of the tallest stones nearest her, watching her.
She felt strangely ill at ease under its scrutiny.
Was it a spirit?
Would it understand if she were to speak with it?
She bowed to it at last.
The bird stared at her unblinking.
‘My Lord,’ she said politely to it, ‘if you have been sent to guide me ... please guide me!’
She heard a chuckle from behind her and blushed to find she was no longer alone.
A girl a bit younger than herself and slightly deformed was watching her with great amusement.
‘Do you always talk to rooks?’ she asked, smiling broadly.
Kyra was embarrassed.
‘No...’ she stammered, ‘but I thought...’
The girl laughed out loud.
‘We have all kinds of people here, but none who talk to rooks! Is he your god?’
‘No, of course not...’ Kyra said indignantly.
‘Then why...?’
‘I thought he might be a messenger,’ she muttered defensively, still feeling foolish. The girl seemed more than ordinarily mocking and unsympathetic.
‘Oh, well,’ the girl said shrugging, ‘anything is possible! But to me he is just an old rook looking for a worm.’
And as she said it he dived and seized something in the grass, tugged fiercely for a few moments and then flew off with his long and wriggling victim in his beak.
‘You see!’ the girl said triumphantly.
‘I know it must have looked foolish...’ Kyra said, trying to be friendly, though she felt irritated by the child. ‘But I am looking for someone to show me the way. Perhaps you...’
‘Where to?’ the girl asked sharply.
Kyra hesitated.
Where to begin?
‘I am a new student,’ she said at last, ‘and I do not know where I have to go to be accepted.’
The girl stared.
‘I mean ... I have just arrived. My brother, his wife and baby and myself have been travelling since early Spring to reach this place. And now I do not know exactly where to go or what to do.’
‘What are you doing in the middle of the Temple?’
‘I ... am not sure ... I suppose I was lost...’
‘No one is allowed in here except the priests and those that they have chosen.’
‘What are you doing here?’ Kyra asked quickly.
The child certainly looked neither like a priest nor a student.
‘Oh, I am useful about the place,’ she said airily. ‘I go where I please.’
Kyra decided not to follow this up until she had settled some more important questions for herself.
‘Could you tell me where to go?’ she asked as politely as she could.
‘I suppose to the house of the High Priest would be the best place,’ she said, looking at Kyra’s pendant. ‘It seems you are one of his.’
This at least was something!
‘Where will I find this house?’
‘I will take you there.’ She turned jauntily and immediately began to hop and skip away from Kyra. Kyra had to run to keep up with her, but strangely felt no breathlessness or strain, no matter how fast she ran.
They passed through the circle of tall stones and found a narrow entrance gap in the high earthen bank. Kyra noticed that the bank looked higher than it had appeared from a distance, as there was a deep ditch around the inside. Where it was broken for exit and entrance, a wooden bridge was across the hollow. It seemed of flimsy build and possibly would be taken away on certain occasions.
Kyra stared around her at the magnificence of the carved and decorated wooden houses the girl led her among. She saw many of the spiral and concentric circle motifs she had noticed on the wooden columns of Maal’s house and on many rock faces during the journey. She began to feel more at home and less afraid as she remembered that Maal had been here and learned his skills in this place. She would learn the Mysteries too and be a priest among priests, not a frightened girl among strangers.
The girl led her to the largest circular house of all and stopped.
Kyra stared at the tall columns flanking the entrance, the beautifully high, thatched roof, and the strangely shaped river worn boulders arranged in a double row leading to the entrance. She noticed that they were of a different stone to the tall stones of the Temple, and fancied she saw in them the tracing of shells and sea creatures similar to the ones she had found in the passages leading to the giant cavern.
‘Is this the house of the High Priest?’ she asked, her voice low with awe and respect.
When the girl did not answer, Kyra turned around and found that she was no longer there. As silently as she had appeared, so silently had she vanished. Kyra heard a sound above her and looked up. On the highest point of the High Priest’s house the rook she had seen earlier was sitting, and he was watching her.
‘Oh no!’ she thought, and in that instant found herself back upon the path beside Karne and Fern and baby Isar, their dusty travelling packs beside them and her own worn sandals upon her feet.
‘At last!’ Karne cried in relief. ‘I thought you were going to sit there forever.’
‘Have I been here all the time?’ Kyra asked, amazed.
‘Of course. Where did you think you had been?’ Karne answered irritably, and then,
remembering Kyra’s peculiarities, which in his impatience he had overlooked, he added more kindly, ‘Have you been “spirit-travelling”?’
‘I suppose,’ she said, still confused.
‘Where did you go?’ Fern asked eagerly.
‘I think I know where we must go now,’ Kyra said, standing up and stretching her stiff limbs. She looked around to see if she could locate the rook, and was half relieved to find that she could not.
She did not know what to make of him. Bird or spirit? Which?
‘That is a relief,’ Karne said, at once picking up their packs.
‘The path you suggested is the right one,’ Kyra said to her brother. ‘I know now where the High Priest’s house is, and we must go there ... I think!’ she added under her breath. Once her visionary experiences were over she was never sure she had actually had them. At the time they always seemed so real. But as soon as they were over, she wondered...
But Karne had no doubts.
They made their way quite quickly down the hill and towards the grand houses nearest to the Temple.
‘Which one?’ Karne asked as they drew nearer.
‘It was one of the round ones...’ Kyra’s voice sounded a trifle uncertain.
‘Which round one?’ Karne persisted.
‘Do not push her so hard, Karne,’ Fern suggested gently. ‘She will find it if she is left in peace.’
Fern had always noticed her own and Kyra’s instincts worked better in quietness and without harassment.
* * * *
Kyra eventually found the house and stood hesitating on the path between the river-worn rocks. She looked up at the topmost point of the thatch and again was relieved to find there was no sign of the rook. She glanced around her, half expecting to see the strange girl who had brought her here the first time, but she too was nowhere in sight.
When her eyes returned to the entrance of the house she was startled to find the High Priest standing quietly observing her.
She had seen him before in ‘spirit-travelling’, but to Karne and Fern he was a stranger, and they held back in some confusion.
He was immensely impressive, tall and regal, clad in long and flowing robes with a huge and elaborately carved jade circle upon his breast.
His eyes in his bearded face looked deeply into their own, one by one.
It was as though they were frozen to the spot, unable to move until he had explored their minds more thoroughly than they themselves had ever done.
They had the uneasy feeling that there was nothing they could keep hidden from him.
After what seemed a long and gruelling experience, he moved forward a step and smiled. They were instantly released from whatever it was that had kept them so rigidly in his power.
He held out his hands to Kyra in greeting and smiled at her.
‘I believe you have something for me,’ he said.
She was horrified. Of course, she should have brought a gift!
He was holding out his hands still as though he was sure she had one.
But what did she have that she could possibly give him?
And then, as though in a dream, she found her hand going to her hip pouch and drawing out her stone of power, her precious sea urchin.
She found herself holding it out to him, offering it to him.
He smiled and accepted it with a slight bow of the head.
‘I have been waiting for this,’ he said in his deep, gentle voice.
Kyra tried to suppress the signs of her disappointment. She did not want to part with it. It was her own, and within it she felt were concentrated great energies and powers that only she could use. Through suffering she had learned the secret and earned the right.
As though she had said these things aloud the High Priest smiled at her and said quietly, ‘You are not ready for such a thing, my child. When you have learned how to use it properly and control it, you will receive it back.’
She felt ashamed of her ungenerous thoughts, but she was not sure she liked the ease with which the tall priest seemed to see into her head.
Karne and Fern were looking quite terrified.
The High Priest now took another step forward and held out his hands for Isar.
Fern drew back instantly, her eyes suddenly sparkling like an animal protecting its young.
No one was going to take her baby from her!
Karne too suddenly recovered his courage and took a defensive step forward to protect the child.
‘Nay,’ the priest said kindly, ‘I will not take the child from you or harm a hair upon his head. I wish only to give him my blessing. He is a stranger in this world and needs more protection than you can give him.’
Karne and Fern looked less worried, but still did not offer the child.
Kyra felt only goodness and kindliness emanating from the man.
‘It will be all right,’ she said reassuringly. ‘I am sure he will not harm the baby.’
Karne stepped aside, but still kept a wary eye upon the priest.
Fern found herself holding her baby out to him as Kyra had found herself offering him her most precious possession.
The priest took the babe in his enormous hands and held him aloft.
Isar stared unafraid into his eyes.
Something passed between them, but not even Kyra could interpret what it was.
At last the old man handed the child back to its mother, and there was a strange look upon his face.
‘What is it?’ cried Fern. ‘What did you see?’
The priest said nothing.
‘Tell me!’ shrieked Fern with unaccustomed passion.
Again the priest was silent.
‘Please!’ Kyra pleaded with every level of her being.
The man spoke at last, but slowly, as though he were choosing his words very carefully.
‘This child and I have been destined for a long time to meet.’
‘Is it good ... the destiny I mean ... or is it bad?’
Fern’s face was anxious and strained.
The priest’s face was thoughtful, removed.
‘Please!’ pleaded Kyra yet again.
‘It is good for one of us, and bad for one ... but I cannot yet see ... for which one good or which one bad.’
Fern was crying and holding Isar close.
Karne put his arm around her.
‘We will keep him away from you,’ he said. ‘You need not see each other ever again. It is Kyra who has come to work with you, not us.’
The priest smiled a shade mockingly.
‘You underestimate the powers of destiny,’ he said. ‘There is no way you can prevent the crossing of our paths. They have already crossed.’
‘But,’ Kyra said, ‘have we no control over what happens to us? Is everything laid down?’
‘Our meeting was laid down as the result of our own actions. That is why I can see it in his eyes. But what we will make of the meeting, that is up to us.’
‘And that is why you cannot see which one will suffer, which one benefit?’
The High Priest looked at Kyra with approval.
‘I see you will fit well into our ways of thought.’
And then he looked at the tired and dusty travellers on his path with the kindliness of a host, all shadows gone.
‘You need somewhere to rest and refresh yourselves. I will call someone to take care of you.
‘In the morning, at sunrise,’ and here he looked at Kyra only, ‘you will come to this house again. And you,’ he said to the others, ‘will be shown where you may build your house and live in peace within the community.’
‘Will Kyra not live with us?’ Fern asked anxiously.
‘No, she must live in the college with the other students. From tomorrow her way and yours must part.’
‘Will we not see her again?’ cried Karne now in dismay.
‘You will see her, of course, but not all the time.’
The three were silent. Sad. Astonished at how fast their lives were cha
nging. The journey had seemed so long it had lulled them into thinking that things would always be the same.
They had never really thought about how it would be at the end of the journey.
As they stood, the long shadows brought by the setting sun creeping around them, a black bird swooped past them and landed with a whir of wings upon one of the river sculpted stones just behind them.
Kyra spun around, and standing on the path beaming at her was the peculiar little girl she had met before.
There was no sign of the black bird after all. It must have flown away.
‘This is Panora,’ the priest said calmly. ‘She will show you to the guest house for the night.’
* * * *
Isar who had been so calm when the stranger priest had taken him from his mother seemed very restless in the night again. The guest house was comfortable and warm and Panora appeared from time to time with bowls of delicious food and helped them light the little lamps of earthenware filled with oil that they had never seen before. She even helped set up a little hammock for Isar which could be rocked to comfort him to sleep.
‘He does not like it here,’ Fern said. ‘I can feel it.’
‘As soon as it is morning we will look for a place for our home as far from the Temple as it is possible to be without being too far from Kyra.’ Karne promised.
‘Will you help us, Panora?’ Fern asked the sprightly girl. She liked her and allowed her to jog Isar up and down upon her knee.
Kyra still felt ill at ease with her. She could not decide what it was, but she thought it must have had something to do with the way she disappeared and reappeared so suddenly.
‘I am here to help; Panora said cheerfully, ‘and I will sing Isar to sleep if you like.’
‘If only you could!’ Fern cried. ‘But it seems to me we are in for a bad night.’
‘Not necessarily,’ Panora said cheerfully, and started to sing. It was a weird little song like nothing any of them had ever heard before.
‘It is not even our language,’ thought Kyra, but that was her last thought until the morning. The song did its work not only on the restless baby but on the others too, and within moments they were all fast asleep.
Panora stood a moment looking at them all with amused eyes, and then flicked her fingers. Instantly the little lamps went out and the travellers were alone in the guest house in the dark, peacefully and dreamlessly asleep.
The Temple of the Sun Page 8
