Goddess

by Fiona McIntosh

  Arafanz gave a soft grunt. “She had everything to fear. You were the single-most-important threat since the early days of her rise through the harem.”

  “How old are you?”

  Again she sensed his amusement; he had found his way back to his protective shell. “Old enough,” he said.

  “Not married?”

  “To Lyana, perhaps.”

  Ana was intrigued. He was so like Lazar in his self-containment. “Never a need for a woman?” she pressed.

  “I didn’t say that. I’ve already told you that Razeen is my son.”

  “Do you–”

  “I permitted you to ride with me, Zaradine Ana, not interrogate me. Did you question Spur Lazar in this manner?”

  “You remind me of him.”

  “In what way?”

  “Your aloofness, your single-mindedness, your arrogance, your terrible vulnerability.”

  He turned now. “And how about our attraction? Do I fire your heart in the same way that Lazar has?”

  It was her turn to feel invaded. She refused to cave in under his intense scrutiny. “No.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he’s not a murderer.”

  They locked stares for several long moments, long enough for the heat to win fresh beads of sweat from her skin. She traced the silent descent between her breasts until Arafanz spoke again. “We are here,” he said, his voice devoid of all emotion.

  “Where?”

  “I shall show you.” He plucked a sack from his camel and pulled it across his body. “We’ll need some light.”

  He helped her climb from the gentle Farim and led her toward what looked like more of the rocks their camels had been keeping close to. But when they were just inches from the rock face she noticed a gap, cunningly hidden by folds in the rock.

  “How clever,” she breathed, unable to stop her admiration from spilling over. “How do you find it?”

  He grinned and the amusement again touched his eyes. “I have taught these camels from calves how to find this place. Neither has ever been used for any other journey. The secret of this important location lies with Farim and her companion.”

  Ana was struck by the notion that Arafanz had invested such faith in a pair of dumb animals. “And what if something happened to either of the camels?”

  “Then the secret is lost,” he said calmly, easing himself into the gap and reaching for her. “Let me lead you. It can be precarious.”

  She took his hand, felt the strength it possessed as it closed around her own, and let him gently guide her into the cool dungeon-like cave beneath the vast rock face.

  Once inside, Ana looked up from the ground where her gaze had been carefully picking out safe spots to plant her feet and found herself confronted by a magnificent, huge rock pool. Water dripped deliciously with a sound that echoed off the cave walls. She sucked in her breath at the beautiful cool atmosphere that soothed her.

  “This is our spring. Beautiful, isn’t it? I needed to check on it,” Arafanz murmured. Ana could barely speak for pleasure. He knew it, too, she could tell from the deep amusement in his eyes. “But it gets so much better. Let me show you.” Again he took her hand, this time leading her down a tunnel. It was so dark that her only connection to reality was Arafanz’s warm, reassuring grip. He halted and she heard flint strike and sparks explode a couple of times as her surroundings were illuminated for only an instant before being plunged into darkness again. Finally, a flame and then a candle was lit. She looked slightly above them to a roundish opening.

  “We’re going in there?”

  “Trust me.” Once again he reached out his hand.

  Ana took it. In a blink Arafanz had encircled her waist, his mouth close to her ear as he quietly spoke. “I’m going to lift you. Just crawl in. At the other end of the very short tunnel is an opening. Don’t panic at the end. It is dark but I shall be right behind you and will bring the light. Just crawl out of the tunnel and you will be on a wide ledge. I promise you will come to no harm, but the light will have to be extinguished momentarily.”

  She turned. They were close enough to kiss. His eyes glittered darkly in the subdued light. Ana nodded and lifted her robe, glad that they had given her trousers today, and then felt herself being swung easily into the air by Arafanz’s strong arms. She got purchase on the opening within moments and began crawling down its dark depths. As he’d promised, she found herself on a ledge. Arafanz was beside her seconds later.

  “Are you all right?”

  She was bemused by his concern. For someone who had gone to such lengths to terrify her, he was incredibly cautious about her physical well-being. “Yes, it was all as you said.”

  Their voices were the only sounds in what felt to her to be a cavernous space. It was so black where they sat, Ana began to lose the sense of where she was in the space. His body, its warmth, his voice, were her only anchors.

  “I’ve brought you to my most private place. No one else has ever visited here with me, not even my son. No one else even knows of it.”

  “Other than your two camels,” she said, giggling.

  She didn’t know if he smiled but she heard a wistful tone when he spoke. “I think of it as mine.”

  “Then why am I here?”

  “I’m not sure,” and she heard the ruefulness in his voice now. “Because you are special,” he whispered, so close to her ear that his breath stirred her hair.

  Ana heard the strike of the flints again and a first candle was lit, then a second. Arafanz stood and moved gracefully around the space he obviously knew well, lighting lamps that had clearly been left from previous visits. And as the illumination increased, so did Ana’s awe. By the time Arafanz returned to where she sat, the cave was bathed in dewy light and a tear of joy slipped down her cheek.

  He smiled fully and she saw genuine pleasure in his face, wondered how long it had been since he’d looked so happy. “I did warn you it got better,” he said, and reverently kissed her hand as he helped her down from the ledge.

  Ana was surprised by his tenderness but didn’t overreact by flinching, snatching away her hand. Instead she nodded graciously, unsure of how else to behave. “What is this place?”

  “I think of it as my place of worship. It’s where I feel closest to my Goddess.”

  And Ana understood. The roof of the vast cave arched magnificently as though it were the ceiling of a grand temple. Hanging from the rocky roof and growing from the rocky cave floor were spellbinding columns that sparkled with more incandescence than any of the jewels people had swooned over in the harem.

  “These are the Crystal Pillars of Lyana. I like to think of them as sentries to her finest natural temple. I come here to pray.”

  “Are my eyes deceiving me or are they changing color?” she asked.

  “No deception. Come, touch them. Feel their beauty, listen to them.”

  “Listen to them?”

  “They will speak to you.”

  She walked over to one glimmering column and touched it. It felt warm to her touch. She leaned close to its rocky, glistening crystals and put her ear close.

  “Do you hear?”

  “A sighing sound?”

  He clapped. “Yes!” She had not previously seen Arafanz so animated. She laughed, their enmity forgotten for the time being. “They are whispering to us, Ana.”

  “What do they say?”

  “They speak only to the individual listener, Ellyana tells me.”

  “She has been here? I thought you said no one else knows of it.”

  “I have not brought her here. I have no idea if she has seen it, but I described the pillars to her and that was her response many years ago. Do they speak to you?”

  “I hear no words.”

  “Perhaps you must be alone. This is how Lyana speaks to me. The pillars told me about you. That’s how I knew when you were born.”

  She stepped back from the column, unnerved by his words. “Lyana told you this?”

>   He nodded.

  “Arafanz, I am not Lyana.”

  He smiled sadly. “I know. But you are important to her. I do not yet know why. But she will reveal all to us as she chooses.”

  “I have been given no instructions.”

  “But still you remain the central figure in her fight.”

  “She has never communicated with me.”

  He nodded. “She will. You must trust her.”

  “What if you’re all wrong? What if I am simply a goatherd’s daughter who has created a lot of problems within the harem and drawn undue attention to herself?”

  “We are not wrong. Too many people are involved with your life for it to be inconsequential to the fight. Do you know who Iridor is?”

  “He’s the owl,” she said, deliberately evasive.

  “And his mortal incarnation?”

  “I have no idea,” she lied.

  “I thought he might be Lazar. But the Spur used no magics to save you, or himself. If he were Iridor, he would surely have employed his magic to help his friend Jumo, certainly to fight me for you. No, Lazar is simply a man in love with you. It is understandable.” He held her gaze.

  Ana cleared her throat. “I am Zaradine to Boaz.”

  “That does not mean he owns your heart.”

  “No,” she said carefully. “But I am fond of Boaz. He is a good ruler. He will be a great one for Percheron.”

  “A new regime will not permit him to sit the throne. He comes from a long line of followers of Zarab.”

  “That is not his fault. As a ruler, he is just and loyal to his people.”

  “I’m not interested in his ability to rule his people. I’m interested only in the Zar’s pastoral care of his people. If he worships Lyana, so, too, will they. If he outlaws Zarab worship, they will ultimately fall in with his desires. Zarab was forced upon the Percherese centuries ago. Now he will be driven from their lives and Lyana will prevail. Boaz is not the man to help in this regime change.”

  “And my son is? A baby?”

  Arafanz nodded. “With the right guidance, yes. He will come to the throne when he’s old enough, with no preconceptions of the life that preceded him. He will not know his father. He will be taught Lyana’s ways. He will know his mother follows her way, shares the Goddess’s name.”

  “Not know his father? How can you deny a son his father when you yourself keep such careful watch over your boy?”

  “I have put my son into much danger and his life has always been forfeit. Boaz is not worthy of his child.”

  “I cannot believe that Lyana would allow such a thing. She would surely want my son to know his father.”

  Arafanz shrugged, ending the conversation. “I have another treat for you. Please, wait here.”

  “Where are you going? I don’t want to be alone.”

  “Not far, and I need only a few moments,” he said, agilely scaling a series of ledges until he reached a long wide platform. He pointed. “This is not rock, here,” he called down.

  She nodded. “I can just make it out…a circle of timber?”

  “I had it made to exact specifications. There is only one particular hour of the day when I can do this and it changes with the season. Now is the hour.”

  Ana looked up at him puzzled. “For what?”

  “Watch,” he said, and with a flourish, he tugged at the rope that led from the disk. The wooden trapdoor fell away and instantly the central part of the chamber was flooded with a glorious light. The rays bathed the columns and fractured into rainbow colors whilst the columns themselves seemed to sing, their crystals sighing as the warmth hit their cool surface. Their voices became a chorus and their colors began to shimmer and change rapidly.

  Ana felt tears wet her cheeks again. This surely was Lyana’s temple. She realized that Arafanz was at her side once more.

  “Come, stand amongst her throng,” he said gently, and led her to a special raised plinth that was encircled by the largest of the pillars. “You must go to the parapet alone,” he said, nodding to the naturally carved steps that would lead her to the platform. With the choir of pillars singing to her, the magnificent colors shimmering around her, Ana walked up the stairs and stepped onto the rock platform encircled by the sentinels.

  And she heard them.

  “Welcome, Mother,” they sang.

  7

  Five moons later…

  Lazar stared out toward the hills and the desert that he knew lay beyond. “Ironic,” he commented to Pez. “Seventeen moons ago I was looking longingly toward the Stone Palace, desperate to be here. Now I gaze out from it with equal longing to be gone.”

  “You are over the worst, are you not?”

  The Spur nodded wearily. “Well enough. I must make ready to leave.”

  “Boaz can’t wait to see you on your way.”

  “This time I go with no one in tow. Just us.” He swung around to face the dwarf. “I wish you had made that trip once more so we can be sure.”

  “But I’m not sure I could survive it, my friend. It was a perilous journey last time. If I took the chance and succumbed to the heat, to loss of direction, to any one of the many hawks that want me for a meal, we would lose our only chance of finding Ana. No, we do it once and we bring her home. We know she is being cared for, I’m sure of it, so this wait has been wise. In fact, I’ve had this niggling feeling that all of this somehow has to do with the rising of the Goddess.”

  “I thought we’d cleared that up,” Lazar replied wearily. “Ana is no such thing.”

  “I shall believe what I wish. You are welcome to your own theory. The Goddess is rising, Lazar, I feel it even if I don’t understand it.”

  “What about Maliz?” Lazar murmured.

  “I’ve been clever at staying out of his way. The Grand Vizier is busy with Boaz and from what I can glean seems more concerned with setting up an escape route for the Zar, Valide, and harem.”

  “What’s his plan? He should consult me.”

  “As far as I know, it’s the eastern foothills. I overheard the Grand Vizier telling Boaz that he knows them well.” Lazar smirked. “Yes, my thoughts exactly. Tariq wouldn’t know what any foothills look like. But Boaz’s mind is too filled with responsibility and private mourning over Ana to take note that his Grand Vizier is suddenly so knowledgeable.”

  “Boaz has visited me often these past moons and from what I can tell he has no intention of leaving the city.”

  “The Grand Vizier is relentless in pushing for him to abandon the palace and its seraglio. That said, he isn’t planning for the Zar to be anywhere near the harem women in their escape. Only the Valide would be permitted to accompany Boaz. As for Salmeo, I don’t think Tariq cares what happens to him.”

  “What’s his motivation, do you think?”

  Pez shrugged. “He claims he is preserving the palace hierarchy, or so he assures the Zar.”

  “It’s a lie, of course.”

  “The curious part is, Lazar, I do think he cares about Boaz–well, care, that’s an odd word, I know. But there’s certainly an element of desiring the Zar’s survival.”

  “That’s madness, though. What happens to Percheron is irrelevant to Maliz. His interest lies only in the destruction of Lyana, whenever she turns up. He’s simply biding his time. All of this mortal angst with war is purely sport for him, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Yes. I can’t explain his concern…not yet.”

  “And speaking of explanations…Have you thought of an idea to explain your absence when we go?”

  “No, but now that I know that we are on the brink of departure, I shall dream up something. Boaz is preoccupied with war anyway. He is not going to miss me. He will miss you, though.”

  “The Zar wants his Zaradine and heir back. I have given Ghassal instructions. He is a good soldier–the best; he knows what to do, how to set up the Protectorate for maximum security. Have we heard anything?”

  “Nothing. You would be one of the first to learn anyway
. Boaz defers to you as Spur despite your illness.”

  Lazar sighed. “He treated me very coolly when we first returned, but he’s warmed. I don’t doubt his mother’s determination to see me fit has helped in that regard.”

  “It’s about Ana, Lazar. It’s always been about Ana.”

  “She is his wife. I cannot stand in the way of that.”

  “Not in the palace, perhaps,” Pez commented, giving a soft shrug of apology. “Don’t pretend you didn’t know I was part of the guile. She told me she just needed some time with you that night. I was her cohort.”

  The Spur blushed in a rare show of emotion. Pez pretended not to notice. “We needed to talk. There was so much left unsaid between us, not–” Lazar stammered.

  “You don’t have to–”

  “Not just around the time of her marriage,” Lazar continued as though Pez had not spoken, “but long before that. There were things I needed to say to Ana that were overdue from the first wretched evening I brought her into Percheron.” He banged his fist on the balcony rail with frustration.

  “You don’t need to justify that time with Ana to me, Lazar,” Pez said softly.

  “I do. You were her accomplice and took a risk for us. I never thought I’d have the chance to say any of the things I did to her on that sand dune. She contrived the meeting–I would never have dared–but I am ever grateful for the opportunity…to talk.” He cleared his throat and sent a prayer to anyone listening that Pez would never know what had actually occurred.

  “It’s odd, you know, that night…before our lives were changed.”

  “What’s odd?”

  “I was sickening for something. I don’t know what it was about. One moment I was fine, the next I was vomiting into the sand as Ana came away from you on the dune.”

  “You were there?” Lazar heard his voice break slightly on the last word.

  “I was awake. Just looking out for her. I had to in case anyone discovered she was not in her tent.” Lazar nodded. “But I was not the only one awake, I’ve just realized.”

  Lazar’s eyes flared with shock. “What do you mean?”

  Pez looked stunned. “Forgive me. I’ve just recalled that the Grand Vizier stepped out of his tent as she came back to the camp.”