by Speer, Flora
“I beg your pardon for my crime,” Janina cried, “and I ask one last favor, Tamat, from you who have always been so kind to me.”
“Have you no pride or shame?” asked Sidra in great indignation. “There is no forgiveness for what you have done.”
“Set Reid free.” Janina would not be stopped by Sidra’s protests. There was only one thing that mattered to her now. She boldly spoke what was in her heart, addressing Tamat and Tamat alone. In the High Priestess lay her only hope for the man she loved. “He is still unfamiliar with our ways and should not be killed for not adhering to them. I lured him on because I wanted him. The fault in this is mine. I accept my fate, but let Reid go.”
“I cannot do that, child.” Tamat looked straight ahead, not at Janina. “You will die together.”
“Tamat,” Reid said suddenly, “enter my thoughts.”
“What nonsense is this?” Sidra cried angrily. “This day is dreadful enough for Tamat. She does not need the added strain of enduring your barbarian terrors over a just punishment. Tamat, pay him no heed.”
“I grant you permission,” Reid said to Tamat. “I give you free access to my mind. Learn from me before it is too late.”
“No.” Sidra spoke angrily, fearfully. “Not before all the villagers. Tamat, this man is mad with fear.”
“I am not mad,” Reid declared loudly enough for everyone in the crowd to hear. “There is much you can learn from me, Tamat. For example, I did not couple with either Senastria or Anniellia. Instead, I gave each of them too much batreen to drink, until sleep overcame their desire. That is why they did not conceive, and all their talk about my wonderful lovemaking was imagination, because I will lie down with no one but Janina. There is more information in my mind, Tamat. Take it while you can.”
“Tamat!” Sidra’s voice rang clear in the astonished silence of villagers and temple folk alike. “Tamat, I beg you, do not exhaust yourself over this barbarian outcast. He can tell you nothing of value or interest.”
But Sidra spoke to a woman concentrating on someone other than herself. Tamat’s eyes held Reid’s. Sidra gave one tiny whimper of fear before she recovered herself. Janina saw Osiyar look anxiously at Sidra, then at Tamat and Reid. A moment later, Tamat relaxed and Reid turned his head to look at Janina. From somewhere inside her shocked, terrified being she found the strength to smile at him. It was the only way she could thank him for his public admission about the village women and about his feelings toward her.
“I thank you, Reid,” Tamat said softly. “You have been helpful. I know now what must be done. I regret I cannot alleviate your sentence.”
“I understand,” Reid replied calmly.
Without another word, Tamat began to walk toward the village. The crowd parted for her, then moved even farther away, as if unwilling to press too close to the condemned pair who would follow the High Priestess to the place where their sentence would be carried out.
In accordance with temple rules, Janina had fasted for three days before her planned initiation. Now she felt light-headed, as though she might faint. Determined that at least in these final few moments of her life she would do nothing to shame Tamat any more than she had already done, she made herself keep walking while she tried to ignore the ringing in her ears and the black veil threatening to cloud her sight. The pain in her feet, which were cut and bruised after her long walk on the hard stone road, helped her to focus her thoughts on taking one step after another. When she took a deep gulp of air and her sight cleared for an instant, she saw Reid glaring about as if he wanted to attack everyone surrounding them. She hoped he would restrain himself and go to his death bravely. It would be an unbearable humiliation if he had to be tied with rope before meeting his fate. She had accepted their just punishment; she wanted him to accept it, too.
To her relief, Reid did not try to fight what was happening. Led by Tamat, Sidra, and Osiyar, escorted by all the other priests and priestesses and the villagers, he and Janina retraced their steps along the road until they came to the wharf.
“The tide is exceptionally low today,” Sidra remarked. “Tamat, perhaps it would be best if you wait here instead of trying to walk all the way to the end of the wharf to reach the water.”
Tamat, ignoring her assistant’s advice, did not stop until she had traversed the length of the wharf. There, where the sea usually rocked the largest of the fishing boats of Ruthlen, shallow puddles had formed amid the depressions in the sticky mud.
“I have never seen the tide like this,” said Osiyar, looking down at stranded shellfish and rapidly drying seaweed.
“Never mind,” Sidra told him. “It won’t stop the punishment. See, the men are bringing planks.” Behind Tamat’s rigidly held, frail back, Sidra flashed a glance of gloating triumph in Janina’s direction, a look that clearly conveyed all the ill-willed pleasure she must have felt at this total ruin of the young woman she had for so long considered her chief enemy in the contest for Tamat’s regard.
Turning from Sidra’s exultant beauty, Janina watched Tamat instead, seeing the grey weariness in that dear face and knowing she had caused it, knowing Tamat would not live long with the grief of this terrible day weighing upon her heart. The aged blue eyes met hers for one last moment, then looked away.
“Let the sentence be carried out,” Tamat said, her voice unwavering. “Let all who witness this punishment know that the laws governing Ruthlen and its temple may not be broken without swift retribution.”
Planks were hastily laid to extend from the wharf to the edge of the water. Speaking in solemn, measured tones that revealed no emotion at all, Osiyar commanded Janina and Reid to descend a ladder at the end of the wharf. Then, with Senastria and a fisherman leading them, they were taken along the planks to one of the few fishing boats still afloat. The tiny boat in which they were to be set adrift was brought and tied to the stern of the fishing boat. The condemned pair were ordered into it and told to sit down. Senastria and her friend got into the larger boat, raised the anchor, and headed for deeper water.
Janina sat huddled on one of the wooden seats in the tiny craft, looking backward toward shore. She could still see Tamat standing at the end of the wharf. She knew the High Priestess would stay there until Senastria and her friend had returned after making certain that Reid and Janina were well adrift.
“How far out will you tow us?” Reid called to the man who sat holding the tiller at the stern of Senastria’s boat.
“Just a little farther, until we are well into the swift current,” the man replied, eyeing Reid with surprise. “Why aren’t you pleading for your life? Or for a quick, painless death?”
“Would you grant me either?” Reid asked.
“And put myself in peril of the same punishment as yours?” the man responded, laughing. “No, never.”
“Then I will never plead,” Reid replied, eliciting another look of surprise from the man, this one mixed with more than a little respect.
“You ought to be pleading in terror.” Senastria turned from trimming the sails to stare at Reid for a moment. “You lied to me, Reid. You let me think you had put a child in me, you let me believe I would be honored for bearing new blood and bone to this community. You made a joke of me. I hope a sea monster eats you slowly, part by part.”
At the mention of a sea monster, Janina moaned in terror, then clamped her mouth tightly shut, grimly repressing the fear now threatening to crack the thin veneer of composure she had so far maintained. She did not want Senastria to carry tales of her cowardice back to Tamat, or to Sidra and the other villagers.
“This is far enough,” Senastria said, unfastening the line holding the smaller boat to hers and tossing the free end of the line to Reid. She looked out to sea with a concerned expression. “The mist is rolling in fast, and I think the tide is still ebbing. It’s unnatural for it to be so low. Who knows what’s waiting out there in the deep water? I want to get back to shore before the wind dies completely and we have to row.” She and the
man brought the fishing boat around and headed for land.
The smaller craft in which Reid and Janina sat was indeed well into the current. It spun around twice before, with sudden surprising speed, it began to move parallel to the coastline. Within moments, the mist had enveloped them. Senastria and her friend, along with the village and all the rocky coastline, disappeared from sight.
* * * * *
“Tamat, there is no need for you to wait until Senastria’s boat returns,” Osiyar said. “Come back to the temple now.”
“The fog will help,” Tamat said, as though speaking to herself. “No one will see them.”
“Come with me, Tamat dear,” Sidra urged. “I will have Adana brew hot dhia for you, to drive away the chill.”
“Nothing will ever remove the chill cast by this day,” Tamat answered.
“You must not grieve for Janina,” Osiyar told her. “‘Those who wickedly betray our trust rightly deserve whatever punishment is decreed for them.’ So says the Law of Ruthlen.”
“Osiyar, have you never loved?” asked Tamat.
“Never,” the priest replied proudly.
“Love,” said Tamat, “is a force even I cannot command or control. I felt it once, long ago, but turned from it because I was a priestess born. Others are not so fortunate as I have been. I pity you, Osiyar.”
Osiyar did not answer. Tamat watched Senastria drop the anchor of her boat. When the fisherwoman and her friend reached the wharf, treading on the planks laid down earlier, Tamat thanked them for their help before she sent all the villagers home.
“I want you and Osiyar to return to the temple,” Tamat then said to Sidra. “Leave the young ones with me. I have a final lesson to teach them.”
“Final?” Sidra looked at Osiyar, and Tamat did not need telepathy to know what her assistant was thinking. Sidra imagined Tamat’s heart had been broken by the events of that day, and she believed Tamat would soon die, leaving Sidra to rule. Sidra feared Tamat’s death would come too soon, before the Sacred Mind-Linking had been performed, yet she dared not betray her concern that she might be deprived of that anticipated additional power.
With her usual lovely grace, Sidra bowed to Tamat before obeying the High Priestess’s command. Turning, she walked along the wharf, back toward the shore, her pale blue robe floating out around her. Tamat watched until she saw Sidra and Osiyar on the road out of the village. Then she faced the four young people who stood awaiting her orders.
“Philian,” Tamat said, “you are to be the leader of this party. Take Adana and these two young scholar-priests and go into the ravine. Avoid the sacred grove. Instead, climb down by the secret stairs I told you of the last time you went to gather medicinal plants. Do you remember the way?”
“Yes, Tamat, but I don’t want to leave you alone.”
“How could I be alone with Sidra and Osiyar to guard me? Now, when you have reached the ravine, this is what I want you to do.” Tamat gave them directions that would send them to the far southern area of the ravine. “Stay there until I send for you. It may be a very long time. Go at once, without returning to the temple, and guard your thoughts well against any intrusion. Your lives depend on that.”
“Yes, Tamat.” They were accustomed to obeying her. They did not question her orders. One by one they knelt to her, there upon the stone wharf, with the mist closing in. She looked down at them fondly.
“I release you from all your vows except the vow of complete obedience to me,” Tamat said. When Philian would have objected, Tamat added, “The reason for this will soon become apparent to you. Now, go.”
When she was alone, Tamat turned to face the sea. In the shallow water just beyond the oozing mud of the exposed harbor bottom, a small fishing boat lay at anchor. Investigating it with her mind, Tamat found it well-stocked with food and other supplies. She lifted one hand, pointing toward the boat. Using all her concentration, she commanded the anchor chain to rewind itself. Slowly, silently, the heavy anchor lifted until the boat was free and had begun to move into the windless fog. Tamat sent it straight out, toward the swift current, and waited until the current caught it.
Then, releasing the boat to move on its own, she gathered her strength once more and let her thoughts leave her body to fly swift as a great seabird along the current, searching in the thick fog, listening, watching, until she found what she sought.
Reid would probably notice that the tiny craft in which he and Janina rode had stopped moving. He knew how to sail and would be alert to such things. Janina, shaking with terror and cold, would not know.
A wisp of fog brushed Janina’s cheek, soft as a kiss. Tamat saw Janina lift one hand to touch the spot, then relapse into her former huddled posture. Reid leaned forward, watching her.
It’s up to you now, Reid, Tamat sent her thought to him. I’ve done all I can, but I must save my remaining strength for one last task. Treat her gently, my friend.
Reid looked up, searching the fog as though he felt her presence. Then Tamat’s mind returned to her body, and she was back on the wharf, dizzy with fatigue, her head aching.
“Now,” she muttered aloud, “it is time to hasten the inevitable before Sidra can cause any more pain.”
All was ready. Philian and the others were safe. By casting her senses outward, Tamat could feel them making their way through the ravine on the far side of the mountains.
The planet itself would help her. The tide was lower than it had ever been before. The mountains belched clouds of steam. The pool in the sacred grove was hot and bubbling. With her senses still open, Tamat reached toward the spirit that had inhabited the sacred grove since long before the first telepaths had come to Ruthlen. She waited patiently for the contact. When it came, she knew with mingled sorrow and relief that she had been right. Sidra had broken the harmony that had lain between Ruthlen and the grove for six centuries; she had perverted the meaning of her most solemn vows, had used the Gift to invade the minds of others without permission, had violated her oath of chastity in her mind if not in her body, and her evil desire for complete power had reached outward from the temple to contaminate all of Ruthlen.
There was only one cure, for Sidra and for Ruthlen. And for Tamat, who had failed to keep her sacred charge, Ruthlen, safe from defilement. What Tamat planned to do was no more than fair retribution. Sidra, with her mind not yet expanded by the Sacred Mind-linking, would remain incapable of understanding the consequences of her deeds, or the need for a terrible Cleansing.
The contact with the Other was broken now, leaving Tamat still standing at the sea end of the wharf. She put her back to the water, to face the simmering, molten mountains. For just an instant she felt young again, and strong, as she had been eighty years before when she had first become a priestess. Then she raised her arms over her head one last time and called down all her power.
Chapter 10
A stone-faced Janina had remained in one position since she first sat down in the boat. She was drenched in cold moisture from the fog. Periodically she shook with long tremors brought on by cold and fear. She stared straight ahead, knowing that at any moment a terrible death would come to her out of the thick grey fog. The sea monster that had once taken her parents would return for her.
She deserved what would happen to her, but that did not make it any less horrible. Reid did not deserve his cruel end, for everything that had happened was her fault. She had prophesied his coming, and by that prophecy had brought him to Ruthlen. She had not warned him immediately that she was unattainable, but instead had allowed him to kiss and caress her, thereby awakening in him the desire that had led to his downfall. She, and she alone, was responsible.
And how badly she had hurt Tamat, who loved her, who must be suffering silent anguish right now because of foolish, wicked Janina.
A wisp of mist brushed against her cheek. Her deep depression lifted a little, and Janina had the strangest feeling that Tamat was there with her, touching her with love and telling her not to lose courage
.
Save Reid, whispered a voice in her mind. Help Reid, Janina.
The prickly sensation lasted only a moment. When Janina raised one hand to touch her cheek, the feeling faded, and her hand fell listlessly back into her lap. She knew she had imagined the whisper because she wished so strongly that Tamat could forgive her. But what she had done was unforgivable, and there was no hope for her, or for Reid.
The little boat felt as if it wasn’t moving at all, though it was difficult to tell in the heavy fog. Janina noticed Reid looking around curiously. Then she heard what he must have heard, the sound of a large body slipping through the water, and she knew the sea monster had come to claim them. Deep apprehension stabbed through her.
A dark, indistinct shape loomed through the mist. Seated as she was in the stern of the boat and close to the water’s surface, the thing approaching them looked immense.
She did not cry out. No one would hear or help, and with a faint glimmering of nearly destroyed pride, she knew she did not want Reid’s last thoughts to be of her cowardice. She would accept her just punishment with as much bravery as she could manage. She caught her lower lip in her teeth, biting down hard to help her remember to keep silent. Squaring her shoulders, she braced herself to meet horror and unendurable pain.
Reid was standing up, something Janina knew should never be done in a small boat. She almost told him to sit down before she heard him laugh aloud. She thought for a wild moment that perhaps Reid planned to tip over the boat, to dump them into the sea to drown before the monster could eat them. Her heart swelled with a strong resurgence of tenderness for him, for his brave, laughing attempt to make their end more merciful.
Reid did not tip the boat over. Instead, he reached out to touch the approaching monster. He grasped some dangling part of the creature’s body and held on, moving so quickly that their boat almost did tip. Janina sat numbly, rocked by the sudden motion, while Reid’s laughing voice sounded around her.