by Shannah Jay
‘That’s an attractive idea, lass.’
‘Music, dancing,’ she said dreamily, ‘beautiful things to brighten up people’s lives.’ She loved dancing.
‘And what about the healing side of things? We mustn’t forget that.’
‘No, of course not. That must be part of it, too. We - our religion can train the healers, with Healers’ Courts in the temple.’
‘All this from one meeting with those beings,’ he teased. ‘I told you they always leave me with ideas I can’t dismiss.’
‘You’re a bit like them, you know,’ she said hesitantly. ‘You feel good - inside and out.’
He chuckled and the tension around them began to ebb. ‘Now then, Karialla! Let’s not exaggerate, eh? I’m nothing like a god.’
Not yet! A voice echoed in her head, clear as a bell in the peaceful air of evening.
Silence wove an invisible net around them. The important question was still hovering on his lips but he wouldn’t force an answer.
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She took a deep breath and added quietly. ‘We must do this, because we can’t bring our children up in a world without hope, can we?’
His face lit up and his eyes seemed so filled with joy that it overflowed from them like tears of living light. When he blinked, the illusion vanished and she saw real tears in his eyes and on his cheeks.
He stretched out his arms and hugged her close, rocking her gently and murmuring against her hair, ‘Oh, lass, lass, how can I ever thank you?’
She smiled and stroked his cheek, then nestled against him with a sigh. How many children could she give him in a decade or so? she wondered. Would that be enough to pass on his Gifts? She stiffened as understanding sank in. No, it wouldn’t be enough. He would need to have as many children as he could. He and other men like him in the years to come. But to have children by women who were also, she hesitated, trying to find the word, and could only settle on
‘sane’ . The implications of that need made her shiver. Could she face that? Could she share Deverith with other women?
‘I want a daughter just like you!’ he was saying in her ear. ‘With exactly that way of turning her head and assessing the world.’
‘I want sons like you, as well as daughters,’ she replied, already aching to hold them. ‘Sons who’ll live long enough to learn a bit of sense.’ She turned round in his arms, and leaned her back against his chest. ‘Deverith, I think our Brother the God has just whispered in my ear again.’ How easily those words came to her lips. How right they sounded.
‘Oh?’
‘Yes. Deverith - I won’t be enough.’
‘Won’t be enough for what?’
‘Won’t be enough to pass on your Gifts. Deverith, you need to have more children than I can produce in ten years, even if I were prepared to have a child every year - and we both know how bad that is for women.’
She could feel the rigidity in his body. ‘Now, lass, what do you think I am? I’ve never been a luster after women.
One wife at a time will be plenty for me, thank you very much.’
‘One wife, maybe. But not one woman to bear all your children. It wouldn’t be enough. Your Gifts are too important to our world.’ She swallowed hard, for even the idea of it made her feel jealous, but she knew it had to be done. ‘Deverith, I’m afraid we must use you like a breeding nerid - with as many women as we can - but women chosen carefully.’
His fingers dug into her arms. ‘I don’t think I can do that, lass.’
She let the matter drop. The seed of the idea had been sown, as his seed would soon be sown in her. She looked around her and pulled a face. ‘Deverith, can we leave the spaceship now? This place feels barren. I’d like to feel the earth beneath my feet again, to see a thousand insects humming around me, to listen to birds and scatter flower petals in the air.’
‘We’ll do just that, love. It’s what I want, too. We’ll find that little grove again. The one by the waterfall . . . And there we’ll make our first child.’
***
When they arrived back in Tenebrak a few days later, Karialla had to blink her eyes several times to get them to focus properly. For a moment, she saw buildings on the ridge, massive grey buildings that rested there peacefully, keeping watch on the city. But that was to come much later, she realised, as the vision faded in a mist of rainbow-coloured light.
For the time being she would plan for a smaller temple, the central building of the sprawling mass the deleff had shown her, perhaps. They could make a start on that. Later it would be the responsibility of those who followed her, their children and their children’s children, down the long chains of linked human lives. This was the seeding time, she knew that deep inside her. The harvest would come later, much later, and whether it would be a harvest of thorns or of ripe fruit depended very much on what she did now.
She bowed her head in acknowledgment of the task that lay before her, then felt Deverith’s arm go round her shoulders and turned to look up at him with a smile. ‘So, my very dear friend and husband, our quest begins.’
His joyful smile was answer enough as he echoed her words. ‘The Quest for the Path of Wisdom and Peace.’ Then he grinned. ‘Not to mention, a quest for children, and a few moments here and there for sharing our love.’
She blushed then, but her eyes were twinkling. ‘That, too.’
CHAPTER 21 The Wedding
When Karialla walked into the One Circle in Tenebrak right in the middle of the main weekly gathering, everything gradually ground to a halt. The singers gaped at her, fish-mouthed; the musicians’ hands snarled the melodies before
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freezing on their instruments; and the handwaving flapped to a self-conscious halt.
She paused just inside the big double doors at the rear corner of the fan-shaped hall, looking around slowly, feeling as if she’d never been here before, so much had it changed. At the front, in the narrowest part of the hall, stood the Church Elders, who now called themselves the Elect, gathered in a semi-circle around Rojan. The rows of seats were less than half-filled. She remembered Loral saying fewer people attended the services conducted by him.
The brief disharmonies she’d caused were followed first by silence, then by a low buzz of conversation as some of the congregation realised a lost sheep had returned to the fold. A few people smiled at her tentatively and Pavlin’s cousin Drellis, waved to her, but she ignored them all.
For a moment longer she waited by the door, vaguely aware that every single eye was fixed upon her, but mostly conscious of the rightness of what she was about to do, the absolute need for it.
She felt sad as she took in the destruction of the beautiful wood carvings she’d so loved. The brightly-coloured woven wall hangings had gone and there were gouge marks marring the tableaux painted on the plastered walls at the rear. Some parts of the outer walls had clearly been knocked down and then rebuilt with inferior yellowish plaster. The smoke-blackened roof in one rear corner showed signs of clumsy repairs.
This had been a place of beauty, she thought angrily, but now it was a memorial to the effects of Discord, which had left nothing in the world untouched. It would be many years before the last foul imprint of the wars was removed, before beauty could return to the land. She drew a deep breath. The sight of such senseless destruction only gave further reinforcement to her new purpose in life. Somehow, she would, she must find a way to banish this lingering evil.
Step by slow step she walked towards the Circle at the front of the meeting house. Those in it moved backwards involuntarily, awed by the stern determination on her face and the assurance of her bearing. They left one man still standing inside the circle, a man whose face was tight with anger as well as disapproval.
Rojan scowled at her. Since he’d taken over as First Elect, people didn’t approach so close to the Circle unbidden, as they’d done before the wars. It was now the place where the Elect, and only the Elect, stood to conduct the
ceremonies.
Karialla stopped, suddenly seeing Rojan with fresh eyes. Ten years of Discord had left no visible marks on his face or body and rather than showing signs of deprivation, he radiated prosperity. His hair was thinner, but he’d gained in both weight and assurance. His clothes had always been dark, but surely this material was richer than before? After her years of apprenticeship to Pavlin, she could tell at a glance that his sandals were fastened with solid silver buckles.
Puzzlement grew in her. Here, in a damaged meeting house filled with the strained faces of strife-weary people, he alone seemed to radiate prosperity and smug self-satisfaction.
At the gilded line which marked the perimeter of the Circle on the wooden floor, she stopped again and inclined her head very slightly, the sort of acknowledgment one offers to an equal. ‘I give you greeting, Rojan,’ she said aloud, deliberately not using his title.
She saw him stiffen and the glance he gave her was filled with annoyance. For a moment, she felt as if she could see inside his head, see the growth of pride and the hunger for power that festered there like a great angry sore. The air seemed to waver around her, filled with hidden energies. She felt his will rise up to meet and challenge hers.
He stepped forward and opened his arms. ‘Welcome back, Karialla!’
She inclined her head, but avoided his embrace. Head held high, as lightly poised as a dancer, she moved sideways and stepped uninvited over the line into the Circle.
Gasps and murmurs of shock came from the congregation.
Turning to them, she raised her arms. ‘I give you greeting, my friends.’ Even as she spoke the sunlight outside brightened and one ray shone through a hole in the damaged ceiling to fall on her face.
There was more murmuring as the congregation returned her greeting, but some people’s eyes were flickering from her to Rojan, as if seeking guidance as to how to react.
She took a deep breath and cried out suddenly, ‘I have been called!’ taking the initiative, as she and Deverith had planned. ‘Called by the gods themselves!’
She took a step closer to the congregation, standing at the front edge of the circle. ‘I was called to return here!’ She gestured to encompass the people as well as the building. ‘Out in the wildwoods I prayed and I meditated and lo, the very gods came to me! Spoke to me. Called upon me to return to Tenebrak!’
Rojan opened his mouth to speak but she didn’t give him time.
‘Oh, yes, I was called!’ she cried for a third time, sending echo upon echo bouncing from the walls, ‘to build a temple up there on the ridge, a temple of learning and healing, a temple which no discord madness shall ever destroy.’
She gestured around her. ‘Wood can burn and has burned here, but stone shall endure. This place has been defiled and bears the taint of evil now. Stone shall replace it and shall bear the imprint of joy and beauty down all the years to come.
And I do call upon you all, here and now, call upon you most solemnly, to help me. Together we shall build a stone temple up on the Ridge, a place of beauty and holiness, where wisdom and the lore of healing shall walk hand in hand.’
She’d planted the seeds of her idea, so now moved on to joyful matters. ‘I have set aside my grief.’ The old ritual
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phrases came easily to her. She turned and made another dramatic gesture towards the entrance, holding out her hand.
‘And I have chosen this man to be my husband.’
Deverith moved out of the shadows by the entrance. He was known to those of the congregation who’d sought his help as a healer, so several people smiled at him. His face shone with happiness and as people watched his eyes meet Karialla’s, everyone could see that her eyes radiated the same love.
‘Come and join me in the Circle, my husband, so that all may bear witness to our union!’ she called.
For a moment, Rojan’s face showed such fury that even Karialla was astounded, then the expression vanished and he grew stern again. But Karialla had seen the rage and would not forget it.
And Deverith had seen it, too, even from the back of the meeting house. With a poise and presence to match his wife’s, he paced slowly along the outer aisle and entered the Circle. Together the two of them turned together to face the congregation and raised linked hands. ‘Friends, we invite you to rejoice with us!’
As if Karialla and Deverith had lit a flame of happiness, joy welled up to fill the meeting house and spontaneously, people began to sing the wedding song, everyone except Rojan, that is. He didn’t give the newly-weds the usual embrace of the First Elect and he stepped backwards when invited to join the dancing that soon started.
Strange, thought Karialla, as smiling people pulled her and Deverith forward to lead the dancing line, strange how I had forgotten the Tenebrani capacity for happiness! Even Discord hasn’t been able to destroy that undercurrent of joy ready to bubble up at the slightest excuse. We must keep that in our temple!
She suddenly remembered her encounters with the deleff. They’d shown her a vision of the completed temple, with men and women in blue robes singing cheerfully as they went about their work.
Led by Karialla and Deverith, the congregation spilled out into the main street of Tenebrak, as they had done in the days before Discord. First, everyone danced around the newly-weds in a laughing circle, making teasing remarks which brought a blush to Karialla’s cheeks. Then some of the men caught her hand and twirled her round once, passing her from one to the other, while the women did the same to Deverith.
After that, they allowed the couple to come together again as they plucked flowers and petals to toss before them, especially the flowers of the red-star creepers, which were planted around many gates because the plant was considered lucky.
Karialla abandoned her cares, laughed aloud and danced along hand in hand with Deverith, leading the line which formed behind them through the town. This was the part of the wedding ceremony she had always loved best. She could remember how it had been for her and Pavlin, dancing along the streets of Tenebrak, followed by their friends, on a day which seemed filled with happiness and sunlight.
Now, she and Deverith led the congregation in a similar dance at the head of a far longer line. The happiness seemed to reach out and draw bystanders towards them. People inside buildings came out to see what the fuss was all about. The dancing line grew longer and longer, for you needed no invitation to join in.
The noise brought Evril and Loral to the door of their inn, faces anxious. When they saw what was happening, however, they too rushed forward to congratulate Karialla and Deverith.
The man who had followed Loral and Evril out of the inn hesitated, watching the festivities as if he’d never seen such a thing before and was uncertain whether to join in or not.
‘A stranger!’ someone cried.
‘A stranger for luck!’ shouted another and left the procession to take hold of the stranger’s hands and draw him forward. Soon, he too was twirling round with the bride, a smile dawning slowly as he tried to match his clumsy steps to those beside him in the line.
The augmented procession wound its way down the street and turned towards the healers’ house. The noise brought Sarann and Niam outside.
Niam shall be Keeper of the Archives in our temple, Karialla suddenly realised. Who better to order and store the knowledge they would gather than this person who has already recorded the foul tracks of Discord for several years?
Sarann hugged them both with joyous gusto, smacking a kiss on Deverith’s cheek and giving him a great hug. When she’d twirled round with him once, she smacked a kiss on his cheek for good measure.
As she took her place beside the stranger in the procession, he smiled at her. You couldn’t remain solemn with a young woman as vivacious as Sarann.
‘Where’d you come from, stranger?’
‘From Harrak, in the hills. My name’s Balas.’
‘I’m Sarann. I’m a trader. How do you earn your daily bread, friend?’
‘I’m a stoneworker.’
The woman on his other side gaped. ‘Did you say stoneworker?’
He nodded.
‘But that’s wonderful. Karialla’s just told us that she wants to build a big stone temple on the ridge up there. And
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now, here you are.’ She called out the news to those nearby and they passed it quickly down the line.
Balas knew then why he had been drawn to Tenebrak, and the knowledge filled him with exultation. He had even more trouble keeping in step as he tried to study the ridge. This was the perfect place for a large building. Hope for his own future began to well in him. He’d dreamed of making something more than a house, something that would stand triumphant over the generations, and he’d learned how to work different kinds of stone on his travels. He gave a happy little growl in his throat.
The line of dancers stopped to rest for a moment, panting and laughing.
‘Look!’ a boy yelled into the lull.
Everyone turned to see a deleff come slowly down the street from the direction of the forest. They parted to let the great creature pass, falling silent in awe as he stopped in front of Karialla and Deverith. Rarely did deleff stay near crowds, let alone approach one, for they were quiet, private creatures with everyone except traders. But this one raised his snout and bugled shrilly, bobbing his head up and down as if saluting the newly-weds, then turned to search the crowd with his huge eyes. He whiffled quietly, sounding pleased, as he trampled forward to nudge Sarann’s hands, his muzzle touching her gently, his intent clear to all.
In a breathless hush, for few had ever seen this miracle before, people watched Sarann lay her hands on either side of his snout and close her eyes, swaying slightly as the communication built up between them. After a short time, she opened her eyes again, blinked the world back into focus and beamed round. ‘His name’s Mazar and he wants to draw my trading wagon.’
