The Temple of the Sun

by Moyra Caldecott

  The evening light and long shadows were upon the Field of the Grey Gods when she arrived, and the scene that she saw before her struck a real chill into her heart.

  Seated on the throne of rock that she had found was a great King clad in strange and foreign robes. He was dark as the Lord Khu-ren was dark, but there the resemblance ceased. Where Khu-ren was tall and slender, his features fine and chiselled, the King was huge and broad, his features handsome but coarse.

  In front of him knelt a slighter man.

  It seemed to her (strange that she had not noticed this before!) that they were not in the field of scattered rocks at all, but were in a great hall built of giant slabs of uneven rock fitted skilfully together. The king’s throne, which at first had seemed to her to be the rock she had sat upon when she fainted, was larger than she remembered it, and carved with unusual devices.

  Upon a stone pillar beside the two men was the carved statue of a huge bird, watching the scene unblinkingly.

  The same feeling she had when she sat that first time upon the rock came over her now. A sort of drowsiness, a sort of dizziness, as though she were not seeing what she was seeing.

  She gripped her stone sea urchin and prayed for help not to lose her senses as she had done before and, feeling strength returning to her limbs, she took a bold step forward.

  With that movement, in that instant, the scene before her shattered like a dream on waking. She was staring amazed at the field as she had known it before, full of scattered random rocks. On the rock she thought of as a throne sat the small boy Isar, with Wardyke kneeling in front of him and Panora perched on a rock beside them in the very place where the stone bird had been.

  Kyra gasped and rubbed her eyes.

  The scene did not change again.

  The three had turned towards her and Isar called out delighted to see her. He jumped off the stone and ran to her.

  ‘See what a great place this is, Kyra,’ he chattered happily as she put her arms about him. ‘We have been playing games.’

  She looked into his guileless eyes and looked beyond him at the half crippled Wardyke now standing stiffly waiting for her approach, Panora smiling her unpleasant, secret smile.

  ‘Games?’ she asked, looking directly at Wardyke and Panora.

  ‘Yes, games!’ Isar answered, but the other two said nothing.

  ‘Your mother is worried about you,’ she scolded the boy. ‘You must not run off like that without telling her where you are going.’

  ‘Panora told her,’ Isar said confidently.

  Kyra looked at Panora.

  The girl shrugged shamelessly.

  Kyra knew now that she could never trust her again.

  She sighed.

  ‘Come,’ she said, and took the boy’s hand.

  The other two remained behind watching as Kyra and child became smaller and smaller in the distance.

  * * * *

  The moon was out before Isar was safely home.

  ‘Do not trust Panora or Wardyke again,’ Kyra said to Fern. ‘Keep Isar close to you. I cannot tell you yet what is going on because I am not sure, but I am going to seek help now and we will soon know what is best to do.’

  She left Fern worried, but Isar promising never, never to leave his mother’s side again without permission.

  * * * *

  In the morning she went to the Lord Khu-ren and told him gravely that she must have his help.

  They had treated each other with great formality since she had entered his class and nothing had passed between them that would have made any of the other priests present suspect they had anything more than a teacher-student relationship.

  They had avoided each other away from the classes as well, not trusting themselves.

  This was the first time she had approached him privately. He looked into her eyes and knew it was a matter for a priest and friend, not for a lover.

  ‘Come to me after the lesson is over today,’ he said.

  She nodded, but hesitated before she turned to leave.

  ‘I would like to meet you beside the Field of the Grey Gods,’ she said tentatively but earnestly.

  He looked surprised, but he agreed.

  And so it was that they met that afternoon beside the field of scattered rocks and Kyra talked and talked, telling him everything she could think of that would be relevant to the situation.

  He knew already of Wardyke’s role in her former life but he had not known he was Isar’s father.

  She told him of the strange destiny that seemed to link Guiron and Isar. She told him of the haunted mound incident, and what she felt about Panora. She described the strange scene she had witnessed in this field the day before and of her own experience with the ‘throne’ rock.

  He listened very attentively to it all.

  ‘I did not know who to turn to,’ she said apologetically at last. ‘The only other possibility would have been the Lord Guiron, but he is somehow involved...’

  ‘You were right to come to me. I understand.’

  ‘I hope you do not think...’ she stammered a little, embarrassed that he might think it was an elaborate way of attracting his attention to her again.

  ‘No, I do not think...’ he said gently, amused.

  He raised his finger to his lips to indicate that now he wanted to be in silence to think it through.

  They sat beside each other, silently, not touching, for a long time.

  At last he stood up.

  ‘I want you to stay here,’ he said. ‘Do not interfere in any way whatever happens – unless I specifically call for your help. Understand?’

  ‘What are you going to do?’ she cried, alarmed.

  ‘There is nothing much I can do until I know how everything fits together. I am going to sit upon that throne myself and see what happens.’

  ‘Oh no!’ she cried. ‘I fainted. It was horrible!’

  He smiled and touched her on the nose.

  She felt very foolish suddenly.

  He was a Great Lord of the Sun, and she had been a green student on her first lesson about rocks.

  She sat down on the bank and watched him walk into the field.

  He sat upon the stone shaped like a throne and became very still.

  He sat for a very long time.

  Nothing changed. The field remained a field of scattered rocks. He was still the Lord Khu-ren whom she loved.

  But he was as unmoving as stone.

  The sun set and she began to shiver with the evening chill. She wondered what she would do if he sat there into the night. He had made her promise not to do anything unless he called to her for help.

  She went into meditative silence herself, but could hear no call for help.

  Nothing at all.

  At last he moved, stood up and stretched himself.

  She was so happy the anxious vigil was over she ran across the field to him and flung herself into his arms. She was bitterly cold now and he held her close to warm her. She was so thankful to have him back that she kissed him again and again on every bit of his face that she could reach.

  He laughed and tried to hold her off.

  ‘Wait,’ he said, shaking her and laughing, ‘you will make me forget all the important things I have learned while sitting here.’

  She jumped back immediately

  ‘Oh ... I am sorry ... please forgive...’

  ‘All right! All right!’ he laughed, ‘you do not need to go so far away.’ And he put his arm round her shoulders to give her warmth and comfort. As they walked back to the Temple, he told her all that had come to him while he was seated on the ‘throne’.

  * * * *

  It was a story almost complete in every detail that seemed to make sense of all the bits and pieces Kyra had been worrying about.

  It seemed that in the ancient days, before their Temple had been built, a great warrior king had come from over the seas, indeed from Khu-ren’s own country, and had conquered much of the land around them, which at that ti
me was full of wandering tribes, each under the leadership of a chieftain.

  The king set up court in that very place. Many of the rocks that they could see scattered about the field were in fact part of the walls of his great palace. Kyra had not been wrong in her vision.

  The stone that looked like a throne had indeed been a throne, but the weather, time and conflict had reduced it to its present ambiguity.

  His god had been in the form of a large black bird, and it was he whom Kyra had seen upon the column.

  He brought both his close friend and adviser and his beautiful queen from his own far country, the three sustaining each other against the alien nature of the land to which they had come.

  All went well for many years.

  They lived in a luxury that no one in the land had ever seen before, and the queen and he were idyllically happy in their love for each other.

  But a shadow was not far from their lives.

  One of the most powerful of the local chieftains, who had been befriended by the king and invited to his court as an equal, fell in love with the beautiful dark queen.

  For a long while he watched her, in the movement of dance, in the stillness as she sat beside her lord.

  But one day he could bear it no longer and he approached her.

  She turned her head towards him slowly as he spoke the words that had for so long been burning in his heart.

  Her almond eyes were dark with scorn.

  Bitterly he retreated and did not rest until he had devised a way of killing the king and his friend-adviser. So cunningly did he do his work and dispose of the bodies that no one but the queen suspected it was he, and she was helpless and unable to convince others.

  It was not long before the murderer, mourning apparently so sincerely the disappearance of his friend, had managed to take his place as king.

  On the day he was crowned he asked the former queen to be his wife.

  She refused.

  He raped her.

  And later when he was asleep she left his side and flung herself into the lake where she and her lord had been happy to sail on many a peaceful summer afternoon.

  From that time on nothing went right for the new king.

  He was broken with remorse for what he had done to the woman he loved and gradually his enemies destroyed him and the palace he had taken as his own.

  He died in battle and through many other lives on this earth and on others he paid for his lust, treachery and violence, until at last the guilt was worked off.

  He was born again on this earth, at this time, and led a good life.

  ‘He became,’ and here Khu-ren paused and looked hard at Kyra, ‘the High Priest of this Temple, the Lord Guiron.’

  She gasped.

  ‘Everything in his life went well until the night he spent in the mist on that lake. He had no surface-memory of the story I have just told you. The whole debt had been paid and he was clear to live now an enlightened life.

  ‘But there were other threads of destiny woven into this tale that had not yet been worked through. The friend of the original king still harboured malice and feelings of revenge. The queen had never been reborn but had haunted the lake waiting for the return of her lord.

  ‘Guiron was confronted by the image of the woman he had loved and he made the same mistake again! She refused him and he forced himself upon her.’

  * * * *

  They had stopped walking and were standing in the dark, Kyra almost not breathing with the interest she had in the story.

  ‘And so the whole cycle of purgation has to start again.’

  ‘How do you mean?’ Kyra asked breathlessly.

  ‘Guiron, horrified at what he had done, drained the lake and destroyed the image of the woman, thinking once again to escape the consequences of his action.

  ‘Whether he remembered now the whole story from the past I do not know. But it is possible.’

  ‘Isar?’ asked Kyra anxiously

  ‘The murdered king.’

  ‘Wardyke?’

  ‘The murdered king’s friend.’

  Kyra remembered that the demon figures associated with Wardyke had reminded her of the gods and demons of Khu-ren’s land.

  ‘Panora?’

  ‘A kind of half-human creature, half ghost.’

  It seemed to her now that Wardyke and Panora were there to play their part in arranging the vengeance of Isar against Guiron, whether the two protagonists wished it or not.

  Kyra was silent in the dark, clinging to Khu-ren’s arm.

  When would it end? If Isar carried out this act of vengeance the cycle of purgation would have to turn for him through aeons of pain.

  How long the threads of cause and effect that wove about their lives!

  How strangely they played their parts in other people’s dramas.

  That Wardyke should father Isar and that she should be instrumental in bringing him face to face with Guiron after all that time!

  Khu-ren put his arms around her.

  ‘You are shivering, my love.’

  She clung to him, and without either of them intending it they found themselves together in Khu-ren’s warm sleeping rugs for the night.

  13

  A Wounded Friend

  As soon as she could Kyra told everything she knew about Isar to Karne and Fern. They sat for a long time discussing it and their suggestions ranged from leaving the Temple environs and moving back to their old home, to facing it out here and now.

  In the end they were all agreed that moving their location on the face of the earth would do no good whatever, nor would trying to destroy Wardyke and Panora physically. It was decided that the only reasonable course they could take would be to watch the relationships between Wardyke, Panora and Isar closely and try and counteract their influence on him in every way possible. They all knew that not much purpose was served by forbidding someone to do something. Their only hope in saving Isar from the consequences of a course of vengeance was to influence him with their love and convince him of the beauty and necessity of forgiveness, so that when the final confrontation came he would not choose to go the way Wardyke and Panora wanted him to and he would be strong enough in himself to withstand their pressures.

  Kyra left them soberly and sadly considering the future, with promises of help from her at any time they needed her.

  She told them also of her love for the Lord Khu-ren and of his assistance in the matter.

  Fern looked at her with tears in her eyes, knowing what it was to love.

  * * * *

  Whatever the plans of Wardyke and Panora were at that time, they seemed to leave Isar alone for a while. Perhaps they feared Kyra’s interference. Perhaps they knew the powerful Lord Khu-ren was now involved. They may have even thought to lull Isar’s family and friends into a feeling that all danger was past. At any rate, Isar was still very young and they could afford to wait.

  Isar grew daily closer to his mother and her gentle teaching.

  Karne too spent much more time with him and when he went on journeys for Olan, riding on a horse, he took Isar with him sitting in front of him.

  The boy had an amazing knowledge of the countryside and many times set Karne on the right path when he was about to stray. Apart from this, which could have been explained by the fact that Isar had lived in this area before, there was not much sign that there was anything unusual about him. He loved to ride, to run, to jump, to play fighting with cudgels as other boys did. But his greatest joy of all was to carve wood into beautiful and fantastic shapes. With this skill he gave both Karne and Fern great pleasure, especially as he chose the wood with care and never harmed a living branch.

  * * * *

  Meanwhile the Lord Khu-ren and the lady Kyra struggled to keep their love for each other under control.

  Apart from that one night when Isar’s story was revealed, they did not see each other except as master and student in the class among the other priests.

  Kyra could see, when she wa
s thinking sensibly, that a priest of Khu-ren’s stature could not live a normal family life without jeopardising his work as Lord of the Sun.

  The control of the subtle and complex inner forces of his Being necessary for the great work he had to do across the world in ‘spirit-travelling’ would be endangered by family distractions and worries.

  The only way they could be together would be if they had equal powers and worked in unison. Their bond of love would then aid and strengthen them. But as long as she was still a feeble and unformed girl, demanding his attention away from his work, instead of aiding him in it, there would be difficulties.

  She knew also that if she chose this way and stood beside him as an equal in his work, she would have to give up any idea of having children of her own.

  A mother with children could surely not be a Lord of the Sun?

  A mother with children would always put her children first before the needs of strangers.

  These were not easy days for her.

  * * * *

  One night in sleep she had a dream that she knew at once was not a dream, but a cry for help.

  She could feel great pain but at first could not locate the source or cause of it. Then impressions of noise, of shouting, heat and dust, and blood. Pain seemed everywhere in her, but visually she could see nothing but a sort of whirling reddish fog. Then she felt hands pulling at her and the pain grew worse, until she could hear herself screaming ... then through the sound of screaming and people’s harsh voices shouting in a language unknown to her, she struggled to interpret another sound which she knew was of great importance but which she just could not grasp with her mind.

  The pain passed through her like a wave and her whole dream went black.

  She was awake, sitting upright, feeling no pain but an overwhelming sense that she was needed somewhere.

  But where?

  If only she could isolate the other sound and recognize it she would know where she was needed.

  She tried to calm her mind.

  ‘Slowly,’ she chided herself. ‘You must go into the Silence if you want clarity of thought.’

  Her mind was at first quite blank as she removed the disturbances of her own life from it, and then she deliberately put herself through the dream again, but this time she kept consciousness.