by Speer, Flora
“Reid, I must tell you something important,” she began, the frown line reappearing between her brows.
“Later,” he whispered harshly, pulling her face down to his. Later she could tell him she was a telepath who knew everything he was thinking, who understood why suddenly he was burning with a molten fire that could only be quenched by her pale coolness. She had beguiled and enticed him, washing him, tending to his wounds, tempting him as she did so, and all because she knew, as he did, that they were fated to come together like this, in this beautiful grove. When their lips met, a white-hot passion erupted in him, beyond control, beyond anything he had ever felt before.
Janina moaned as Reid’s mouth touched hers. She knew she should not allow this to happen. She was forbidden to men. But oh, his mouth was warm, and sweet, and tender. Just for a moment she would let herself feel what it was like to be held and kissed by a man. Only for a moment, perhaps two. After that, she would tell him he must stop.
But the kiss went on and on, and his arms tightened around her even more, and she knew she did not want him to stop. She wanted to stay in his arms forever. For all eternity.
Reid rolled over, pining her beneath him on the moss. She felt his weight pressing down on her, from his broad, heavily muscled chest crushing her young breasts, to his strong arms across her back, to his long, taut legs which held her own firmly between them. She could feel the wonderful hardness of him pushing at her, burning through her robe. How marvelous, how incredibly beautiful it was. How absolutely right.
His mouth moved against hers, encouraging her to open her lips. When she did, his tongue slid into her mouth, found her tongue, and began to play with it, teasing her into a pulsating panic of new awareness.
His hands were on her small, firm breasts, caressing the sensitive mounds until they ached. And still his tongue, still his lips, drove her wild, until he left her mouth and began kissing her throat, pushing the wide neck of her robe aside, trying to reach her bare breasts beneath it. The neckline wasn’t quite wide enough, so he lowered one hand to lift the hem of her robe.
“Take this off,” he urged. “Please, Janina.”
She sat up to do his bidding, turning her head aside as she moved, so she could catch her breath. Thus she breathed deeply of air not scented by the red khata flowers, and her whirling senses cleared enough for her to remember who and what she was. She looked at the man reclining beside her and thought her heart would break.
He pulled her robe upward, trying to help her remove it, his hand caressing along her leg to the inside of her thigh. Janina put her hand on top of his, stopping him.
“Reid, I understand what you want, but I cannot do it,” she said. “I am a priestess sworn to eternal virginity.”
Something beautiful and precious went out of his expression. His face hardened. The look in his grey eyes was terrifying. She thought he might strike her, or throw her back onto the ground and take what he wanted by force.
“I’m sorry,” she said. Innocently trying to comfort him, she put out one hand to touch the rigid manhood straining upward beneath his undergarment. “I tried to tell you before you kissed me the first time.”
“No!” He pushed aside her hand. With sudden explosive energy, he sprang to his feet and raced to the edge of the pool where he stood with his back toward her, breathing hard. Around them the sound of his angry cry echoed and re-echoed against the rock walls or the grove.
“At first I did not understand what we were doing, because no man has ever kissed me, or touched me in that way. I have always been kept apart from men,” Janina explained, thinking she knew how he must feel, because she had not wanted to stop, either. She had felt an emotion while in his embrace, an opening to a kindred spirit, which she had never experienced with anyone else, not even when Tamat occasionally touched her thoughts. What she felt for Reid was so strong, and so important, that it had immediately broken down any barriers of strangeness between them. But her emotions could not overcome the boundary set about her by her sacred vows. She had to make him understand that. If the look on his face when she ended his lovemaking was any indication of his feelings, understanding would be difficult for him.
“It is forbidden to touch a priestess in that way,” she said quietly. “I should have stopped you at once, I know, but it was so lovely. Your mouth was so sweet. I wish I could do what you want. I ache because I cannot. Now that you have held me in your arms I think I will ache for you all of my life. But I cannot break my vows. Please try to understand. Please don’t hate me.”
“I cannot rape a priestess of any religion. I will not touch you again.” The words were hard and cold, like stones from an icy stream. He turned to face her suddenly, and she saw that passion had not gone from him completely, though it was controlled now. “What I do not understand is why you chose to torment me in this way. As a telepath you must have known everything I was feeling, how much I wanted you, and believed it was meant to be. You encouraged me. You made a fool of me.”
She was on her feet now, too, to face him bravely, though she was much smaller than he was and trembled at the thought of his anger unleashed against her.
“I am not a telepath,” she said. “The others are, but I am not.”
“What?” He looked hard at her, all passion gone. He was cold and tough, as he must ordinarily be, and she believed he was searching her face for evidence that she was lying.
“I am not a telepath, which is why at my advanced age I remain only a scholar priestess in a simple robe,” she informed him.
“But even so, you are still sworn to virginity.” He said it as though it rankled him, and no doubt it did, after the last hour. Janina realized that she had hurt him badly, and, as he had complained, she had made him feel like a fool.
“All priestesses take the same vows,” she said in a gentle voice, so she would not anger him further.
“I don’t see any point to that.” He sounded sullen, his anger unappeased by her explanations.
“It is so the priestesses will be free to dedicate themselves to their work without the distraction of emotional entanglements with men,” she told him.
“Exactly what is your work, Janina?”
Still that sullen tone. She did not blame him for it. She answered the rude question politely, though she oversimplified the facts.
“We lead the people of Ruthlen in their worship of the life-giving sun and the twin moons. We keep the yearly records so the farmers will know when to plant and when to harvest their crops before the heavy frosts come. We advise the fisherfolk about the phases of the moons and warn them when dangerous tides are due. We search the skies day and night, continually standing guard in case the Cetans come again to plunder and kill.”
“Cetans?” He frowned and took a step toward her. “When were Cetans last here?”
“Six hundred years ago,” she replied promptly and saw him relax at her answer. “We lived elsewhere then. The Cetans destroyed our original city and killed or enslaved all but a few of our ancestors, who later fled to safety here, far away from the old settlement.”
“I see.” She was fully aware of how carefully he watched her as he put his next question. “The others are all telepaths?”
“I said so,” she told him sadly. “I am the only one who lacks the Gift.”
“Then how did you know my name?”
“I foresaw your coming,” she said, apparently stunning him with the simplicity of her answer. “I saw your face.”
She thought at first that he did not believe her, but then he nodded and asked, “Will you take me to the others?”
“Let me draw the Water first, and you may return to the temple with me,” she promised. “Reid, please don’t tell anyone what we did here.”
“You needn’t worry about that,” he said. “I won’t say a word. No man likes to be played with and then tossed aside.”
“I suppose no woman does, either,” she remarked coolly, stung by his words, and went to wash out the water
jar before filling it with Water from the pool.
“Won’t they all know anyway?” Reid asked, watching her strap the brimming jar into a harness and settle it on her back. He did not offer to help, not wanting to touch her and chance awakening feelings ne ought not to have.
“There are laws governing use of the Gift,” she said, starting down the stone path. “No one will invade your mind without your permission. Only Tamat is permitted free access. She does not use it often. She is old, so the strain of accepting another person’s thoughts and emotions is exhausting to her. Step carefully here until your eyes grow accustomed to the dark.”
They entered a tunnel similar to the one Reid had used to find the grove, except this tunnel slanted downward and had steps carved into it at several spots along the way. It seemed to him that they walked a long distance before they came out onto a stone terrace located halfway up the mountainside. He stood blinking in the blindingly bright sunshine, letting his eyes adjust to it. Janina waited patiently while he looked around.
“What in the name of all the stars -?” Reid exclaimed. “There is nothing even remotely like this on our computer model of the continent. Where are we?”
“This is Ruthlen,” Janina replied.
“It shouldn’t be here,” Reid insisted. “It can’t be here.”
But it was, and it was perfectly real. A curved range of six mountains isolated the crescent-shaped lowland from the interior of the continent. As Janina had told him, five of the mountains bore wisps of smoke or steam clouds at their peaks, evidence of volcanic activity. From the mountains to the edge of the sea, the narrow area of inhabited land sloped sharply downward. Most of it was divided into terraced fields which were dotted here and there with farmhouses. It was near the end of the growing season, so the fields were gold with grain, or in some places, a rusty orange shade. Thanks to Alla’s constant lectures, Reid recognized the rusty color as one of the most ancient of grains, Demarian oats. He could see men working among the crops, their backs bent to a rich harvest.
The village, so small a place it was hardly worthy of the name, was nestled into the northern point of the crescent, in a location well protected from winter gales. Tiny, thatch-roofed houses in soft shades of blue, yellow, or pale orange clustered together along two streets that crossed at right angles. Reid saw boats moored against a wharf which extended far out into the sea. He wondered at the length of it before he recalled the twin moons and realized that because of their gravitational pull, the tides on Dulan’s Planet varied widely, and a boat tied up near shore at high tide could be stranded on land during low tide.
“Where do you live?” he asked Janina.
“In the temple complex.” She pointed, and Reid stared.
It was so different from the rest of the village. It stood just to the north of the houses, on a flat space that he was certain had been carved out of the solid rock. The complex was round, with a low, white stone wall along the perimeter and the temple itself in the center. The shape and style of the temple duplicated both the little pavilion in the grove and the building which was now Commander Tarik’s headquarters. It had twelve pillars forming a colonnade around its outside, and a domed roof set with translucent material to gather light for the interior. Six smaller buildings of identical design were spaced at intervals around the main building. All were white.
One of the village streets ran past the single entrance to the temple, then continued onward, suddenly becoming a wide, stone-paved road. A little beyond the temple complex, a high outcropping of rocks formed a wall extending into the sea. The road curved around the landward side of the rocks and disappeared.
Reid saw that Janina, apparently thinking he had looked long enough, had begun to descend the steps cut into the mountainside. He followed her, marveling that his feelings toward her were continually changing. Once they were well away from the unknown presence in the garden and the scent of those star-blasted red flowers, he had recovered his wits, and his clamorous, uncontrollable desire for her had subsided enough to allow him to wonder what in the name of all the stars he had been doing, trying to ravish an unknown girl.
He cast a quick glance at her, walking beside him in quiet calmness. She was lovely, but he had known beautiful women who left him untouched emotionally. Why had he felt such certainty that he and Janina were meant to be together? He had felt that way even before he had gotten close to those red flowers. What was happening to him? Was it some cruel telepath’s trick, to make him feel this deep bonding to a virgin priestess, a woman he could never have?
He did not know the answers to those questions, but he thought he would be well out of a very peculiar situation if he could convince Janina’s people to help him get back to headquarters at once. Perhaps, if he were far away from her, he could forget her and begin to feel free again. He quickened his steps. He was eager to meet this Tamat of whom Janina had spoken. He had quite a few questions for her.
Chapter 4
To get to the temple, Reid and Janina had to take the road into the center of the village, then turn left on the street leading northward out of it. But first they had to pass the terraced, stone-walled fields. A farmer looked up at them, dropped the armload of grain he had been tying into sheaves, and ran after them, calling loudly to his neighbors to come along.
“A stranger!” he yelled. “A giant has been in the sacred grove - and with a priestess, too.”
“What is he saying?” Reid demanded. “I only understood part of it. Have I committed some sin by setting foot in the grove?”
“It doesn’t matter what they think,” responded Janina. “Anyone or anything that is different is a scandal to them. Tamat will silence them quickly enough.”
Reid gave her a sharp look but said nothing more.
By the time they reached the village, at least a dozen people had left their work in the fields to trail after Reid and Janina - men, women, and a few children. The villagers joined the parade, murmuring their surprise at the sight of a newcomer, and their horror at where he had been. When Reid saw two boys sprinting ahead of them, he knew the High Priestess would promptly be informed of his arrival.
As an outsider coming into an isolated community, he had expected to be the object of much curiosity, and possibly of hostility. What he had not expected was his own sense of amazement. He thought he must appear to them as a dark, hairy, frightening alien, for these people were all alike. Everyone he saw was small in stature. Even the men seemed to be at least six inches shorter than he was, and they all had blond hair and blue eyes. There were minor variations. Janina’s silver-gold hair was the lightest, but the darker shades ranged only to a soft golden brown. The eyes, now fixed upon him in astonishment and outrage, varied from the palest silver-blue to a deep shade that almost matched the sky. He saw a few heavy-set, middle-aged men, but most of the people were slender.
In his mind, Janina stood out from them all. Her hair was the palest, her eyes were the softest, and her quiet, dignified bearing amid the growing clamor set her apart from farmers and villagers alike. She answered none of the rude questions that were being called out to her, but walked silently through the village and turned onto the road toward the temple. When the crowd began to jostle both of them, Reid moved closer to her, in case she should need protection.
“He’s a Cetan!” someone cried in a voice full of fear.
“Or a Jurisdiction officer!” screamed someone else with no less concern.
“He has desecrated the grove and the Water!”
“And the priestess!”
“She’s not really a priestess. Without the Gift, she’s not one of us. She’s only allowed in the temple because of Tamat. She ought to have been banished years ago. Just wait until Sidra becomes High Priestess. Janina won’t last long then.”
A stone hit Reid between his shoulders. He whirled around to search for the thrower, and the tormentors nearest him fell back a little.
Janina had not paused in her steady steps. Reid hurried to c
atch up with her. He could feel the villagers closing in behind them once more.
“Can’t you walk faster?” he said, not because he was afraid but because he was suddenly concerned for her safety. He did not want to see her harmed.
“It wouldn’t help,” she replied calmly. “If we try to run away, they will overpower us and it will be worse. They might hurt you badly.” Without breaking stride she gave Reid a quick look from mist-blue eyes. “Ignore them. We will be inside the temple complex soon. Tamat will send them away.”
After they had left the village behind them and were approaching the graceful temple, the hostile crowd trailing them fell silent, drawing back a little. Reid thought perhaps they were in awe of the man who stood at the opening in the low wall surrounding the temple complex.
The man was robed in darkest blue trimmed in silver, and he was the most handsome man Reid had ever seen. He was almost as tall as Reid and looked like some magnificent mutant among the shorter villagers. His jaw was square and his nose was perfect. Smooth, golden hair hung to just below his ears. Sparkling, sea-blue eyes looked directly into Reid’s with cool assurance. On his brow, just above his eyes, the man bore a tattoo, a large blue dot between two blue crescents. Reid learned later that these signs represented the sun and the two moons. Along with the knotted, rope-shaped gold bracelets on each wrist, the tattoos were the identifying marks of those bound into full priesthood.
“This is Osiyar, our High Priest and Co-Ruler,” Janina informed Reid, in a voice that told him she held the man in either reverence or fear. To the handsome man she said, “He was awaiting me in the pavilion. His name is Reid, and he is the man I saw in my Test. I thought it best to bring him here at once.”
“I’m not certain that was wise.” Osiyar looked past Reid, to the people still hovering nearby, who were obviously angry and frightened. Osiyar raised his voice to address them. “There is nothing to fear. The man is not a Cetan, nor are there Cetans coming to attack us. Tamat will examine him and will tell you later what will be done with him. Return to your homes until Tamat calls you together.”
