‘You had better keep her out of sight this time. He does not like people who do not enjoy his festivals.’
Lark passed the group and her heart was heavy for Isar.
In her dream everything had seemed possible.
Now, she was not so sure.
* * * *
To Deva precious time was passing and the great priests of the Temple of the Sun seemed to be doing nothing to help Isar. She began to wonder if they had any power at all. She began to wonder if Groth was indeed the true god.
‘At least he gets results!’ thought the girl bitterly.
Kyra had tried to teach her the difference between force and power, between slavery and freedom, but it seemed she had not accepted the lesson.
Groth was holding her love.
It began to seem to her that it was to Groth she should turn for his release.
She searched her mind for all that she had heard about the dark god, and when she had found what she was seeking, she closed her thinking to all else.
Secretly she searched for the little white kid that her favourite goat had delivered to her at the last full moon. It had been living with her in her chamber until her recent illness, and had been fed with choice scraps from her own food.
She found it in the home of Lea, her mother’s friend, the priest of dreams.
From her father’s chamber she took the ceremonial knife with the blade of sharp jasper and the wooden handle studded with gold pins. It had never drawn blood, nor was it ever intended that it should. Its function in the Temple rituals was purely symbolic.
Deva hid it now in her tunic and ran with the kid bleating pathetically under her arm, away from the Temple of the Sun to the dark hump of the haunted mound that rose so mysterious and high above the low plain to the southwest. She had heard that in ancient times it had been used for ceremonies to a strange god and that dark ghosts of blood sacrifices were said to haunt the place.
She must not be afraid.
Groth had her lord.
He had the power to release him.
What did her parents know?
Times were changing and a new god was supplanting the old.
She was out of breath when she at last struggled up the steep slope of the haunted mound. The animal in her arms struggling to escape was much heavier than she had thought it would be, and the knife at her waist seemed to add its strength to drag her down.
But at last she was at the summit and the sun’s dark red orb had not yet sunk below the horizon.
‘At this moment,’ she thought, ‘it is probably touching the head of Groth.’
She had started to think of him as associated with the setting of the Sun. The rising of the Sun belonged to the god of her mother.
There was no time to lose.
She gripped the small white animal that she loved, and raised the ritual knife high, fear and guilt singing in her ears to drown the cries for mercy that were welling from deep within herself.
‘Groth! Powerful new god of Klad ... accept the sacrifice of this life I love in return for the life of Isar!’
The animal screamed as she plunged in the knife ... and screamed again.
It was not dead. The sacrifice was not complete.
Sobbing, she stabbed and stabbed.
The creature screamed and struggled.
Blood was everywhere on its white fur.
Its eyes were full of pain.
They would never leave her.
Sweating and weeping and now screaming herself, she finished the deed at last and stood shuddering over its pathetic little corpse.
The cold shadow of the night crawled across the landscape towards her.
‘O God,’ she sobbed, ‘what have I done!’
But the God she called was not called Groth.
* * * *
Karne had a difficult decision to make. He knew he must take advantage of the confidence his men had gained by the success of their subterfuge, but he was not sure how to do it.
To move deeper into enemy territory without a clear and workable plan was foolhardy. To retreat was unthinkable.
He needed another scheme like the last, something amazing and unexpected.
He walked away from his men and sat upon a flat slab of rock on the top of a hill. From that position his view over the surrounding countryside was wide and clear. Something tugged at his memory but he could not bring it to the surface.
Far below him the trackways that criss-crossed the land looked like the outlines of a pattern. Above him a kestrel hovered a long time and then drifted off on a current of air, to hover again, and this time to plunge and kill.
The two separate images came together in his mind and, in a flash, he found what he had been seeking!
Kyra had travelled in spirit form many years ago to a distant land and had told him how she had found a people there to whom flying was a sacred act, a form of meditation. Karne had been sceptical, but her description had been so detailed and so vivid that by the end he was half inclined to believe her.
It seemed the fine dry sand of a vast plain was used by the priesthood to hold huge symbolic patterns, which meant nothing when you stood on the ground beside them, but which took shape and meaning if you were far enough above them. To get above them initiates launched themselves from the high cliffs of a mountain range that ran down the west side of the plain, strapped to a frame which held huge sails of thin hide. Instead of crashing to the ground as she would have expected, they drifted out over the plain, slowly and gently, curving to the slightest movements of the air, gazing down upon the sacred markings and drawing strength from them. They came to land a long way from their launching place, unstrapped themselves and walked away unharmed.
‘Why not?’ Karne thought. When she had told him of it he had longed to try it out. But the longing and the opportunity had not come together. Now they had, and his determination and his need were going to make it work.
* * * *
When Gya had said so boldly that he would prove that Na-Groth was fallible, he had no idea how he was going to do it. But his chance came sooner than he expected.
News that one of Na-Groth’s armies had been defeated inexplicably by spirits, began to be whispered amongst the inhabitants of the dark plain.
The indiscreet villager who had started the rumour had been instantly put to death as an example to others who might consider undermining Na-Groth’s image, and the troop of soldiers who were reputed to be the ones who had fled before the vengeful spirits, were slaughtered as well.
A fresh troop of warriors was despatched at once to the scene of the rumoured battle.
Gya saw his chance.
‘We will go with them,’ he cried. ‘We will march with the warriors as though we are part of Na-Groth’s army. And when we find Isar’s people, we will join with them and turn on Na-Groth’s troop.’
The rebels were doubtful. They had been waiting so long they could not believe the moment to act had really arrived.
‘What would we do for weapons?’ one asked.
‘Did not the troop who were just massacred have weapons?’ Gya demanded.
‘Yes, but...’
‘They must be somewhere. Find them!’
He spoke with such authority the men found themselves accepting him as commander without question.
Berka watched with shining eyes, proud of her protegé, and when he shouted ‘Find them!’ she was the first to dart away.
The weapons were found and stolen. The men dressed in the dead warriors’ clothes, and were ready to march with Gya at the head.
As he raised his arm to start them off, Berka returned, out of breath, dirty and badly scratched, but in her hand she carried triumphantly his precious bow and arrows.
* * * *
In the palace Isar was choosing the wood for the Face of Groth. This was perhaps the most important part of the whole process of carving. The wood must be right. The wood must contain the image. The knife’s work was to release it to
the vision of others.
Groth’s skull-faced servant Gaa-ak had led Isar into a room much larger and lighter than the one in which he had been confined. Near the roof were slits where the spaces between the beams had not been completely sealed over with reed and hide. Shafts of sunlight speared the gloom and picked out in grotesque detail the faces of Groth’s servants surrounding him, and the twisted, gnarled wood they had chosen to bring for him.
Slowly Isar paced up and down looking at the wood, Gaa-ak watching impatiently.
‘Take your choice!’ the old man commanded at last. ‘Groth cannot wait forever for his Face.’
‘Cannot?’ questioned Isar, raising his eyebrows.
‘Will not!’ snapped Gaa-ak.
Isar smiled briefly, but his attention had already left the man and he was thinking about the wood.
Usually when he was about to make a carving he stayed alone with the wood for a long time, studying it, feeling where the image lay and how it could be released. With so many people standing about watching him, the pressure of time upon his back, the smell of danger in the air, his inner senses would not function properly and he could see nothing in the wood waiting for his blade.
He delayed as long as he could, picking up first one piece of timber and then the other, running his fingers over each one in turn.
What was he to do?
On Gaa-ak’s nod a guard prodded him painfully with a spear and he decided he could stall no longer. He took the first piece of wood that he touched and looked with gloom at it as the other pieces were taken away.
It was a huge, ugly, shapeless piece, with no character and no life.
He felt no urge to create anything out of it.
‘Good!’ Gaa-ak snapped.
He nodded sharply at one of the guards and the man left the room.
‘You will be given your tools, but do not think that as soon as you have a blade in your hand you will be able to escape!’
The old man’s eyes glinted dangerously.
‘The guards will be doubled and they will all be picked men with instructions to kill.’
‘But if I am killed...?’
‘Groth will have to wait longer for his Face. That is all. It is of no great matter.’
Isar was silent and depressed. He felt no joy in taking his carving tools into his hands again, though he had longed for this many times in the past dark days.
* * * *
Khu-ren and Kyra were on their way to the Temple refreshed and ready to take the next step in their difficult task of defeating Groth, when a disturbance near their home gave them pause. People were shouting and weeping and crowding round something that was carried in the arms of one of them.
The first reaction of the two priests was to continue on their way to the Temple as their work there was urgent, but Kyra’s instinct told her that she was needed.
It was her scream that brought Khu-ren swiftly to her side.
The noisy crowd instantly became quiet and drew back, leaving the two great priests kneeling beside the pale, dishevelled figure on the ground. It was Deva, unconscious and covered with dried blood, her face streaked with dust and tears.
Kyra wept for her child, but Khu-ren gently pushed her aside and put his hand on the girl’s breast.
‘She is alive,’ he said softly. ‘Kyra, she is alive.’
And then to the silent crowd commandingly:
‘What happened? Where did you find her?’
‘Beside the haunted mound, my lord,’ the man who had been carrying her said in a low and respectful voice. ‘She was lying on the ground.’
‘What is this blood? Where is she wounded?’
Khu-ren searched for the source of the bleeding.
The man who had found her shook his head helplessly.
‘I do not know my lord, I brought her here as quickly as I could.’
Khu-ren was puzzled.
There was no wound, but a great deal of blood.
‘Fetch the Lord Vann,’ he commanded. ‘Bring him to our home.’
His face was grave.
Several people ran for the healing priest.
Khu-ren pried Kyra loose from her child and lifted the girl in his arms.
‘Come,’ he said, ‘we will take her home.’
* * * *
Deva walked again in the hot sun of the desert land she had left so long ago. There was the shadow of a horror at the back of her thoughts.
‘I will not think of it,’ she told herself. ‘I will not think of it!’
But although she refused to recognize it, it coloured everything she saw. The garden that had once seemed so beautiful, full of deep green peace, now carried menace in the shadows.
Time had passed in that half-forgotten, former life of hers. She was no longer a child. She was a young woman waiting for news, news on which a life depended.
She paced the white stone paths and stared at the fountains and the lilies which once had seemed so transcendent, but this day she saw nothing but water that was slowing to a trickle and lilies that were dying.
She heard someone approaching and spun round to find her love running towards her, his face distorted with anger and bitterness.
‘They are going to execute him!’ he cried. ‘We must rescue him!’
She knew now what the horror was.
She had seen his greatest friend kill the commander of the King’s guard in anger.
She had seen the stabbing ... the blood ... heard the screams...
But what she would never forget were the eyes of the commander at the moment of death!
Deva, in her sleeping quarters, Vann and Kyra at her side, tossed her head, her eyes flickering, memories passing through her mind ... her lover fighting the guard, herself drawing back the bolt of the prison cell, their friend escaping ... the three of them at sea ... going to a new land to start a new life...
But the dying eyes of the commander followed her there.
And later she saw the same look in the eyes of her love, as he was murdered, and in the eyes of the white kid as she sacrificed him ... the same blood spilling...
Would it never end?
She screamed and sat up.
Kyra’s anxious face was beside her, her comforting arms around her.
The kindly, grey haired healing priest, Vann, was behind her mother.
She could smell herbs burning in the brazier.
Fully awake now, she looked with wide and frightened eyes around her. She had killed a living thing, an innocent gentle animal she loved, and she could hear Groth’s laughter like thunder over distant mountains.
She looked down at herself. The blood was gone. She had been bathed in sweet smelling water and dressed in fresh robes.
But the questioning eyes of the dying creature were still with her.
Why had she done it?
Kyra stroked her head and the girl pulled away from her.
If her mother only knew...?
‘I know,’ Kyra said gently. ‘The body of the kid was found.’
Deva looked at her aggressively, ready to defend herself.
Kyra looked back at her steadily. There was no accusation in her look, only love.
Deva lowered her face, so that her mother could not see her eyes.
How could she bear it?
‘Did Groth hear your prayer?’ Kyra now asked quietly.
Deva lifted her chin and her eyes were defiant.
‘I do not know,’ she said. ‘Did your god hear yours?’
Kyra was silent.
Things had gone further even than she had feared.
Was it now ‘your god’ and ‘mine’, she thought sadly.
Her heart ached.
They were trying to defeat Groth in far away Klad, when he was already stalking in their midst.
Vann held up his hand to prevent her saying anything.
‘The child has been through a great deal. She must rest now. Leave us.’
Kyra hesitated, but Vann was right.
<
br /> The expression on the girl’s distraught face was enough to show her that the time was not right for teaching or for learning.
Kyra bowed and left the room.
Vann offered Deva a soothing potion.
Her face distorted bitterly as she dashed it from his hand.
‘I am not a child,’ she snapped. ‘I do not need you. I do not need any of you!’
He looked at her long and searchingly and then he too bowed and took his leave.
Alone, Deva flung herself down and sobbed as though she would never stop.
* * * *
In the palace of Na-Groth, Lark was asleep.
Her sleep was deep and restful at first, and then, slowly, a vision began to form for her.
She tried to ignore it, too tired to accept anything from anyone any more.
But the vision was persistent.
She had to let it come.
Kyra’s teacher, the spirit Maal, helped her once again to see what it was necessary for her to see.
She saw the Temple of the Sun, the tall stones vibrant with the energy of the priests who stood beside them, Maal pointing to one strange regal figure in feathered cloak. It seemed as though she entered his body and there experienced his memories and his thoughts.
Screaming, she turned to fight off the attack of a ferocious little animal. She felt fear, agony, saw the malevolence in the creatures eyes!
Terrified, she sprang awake.
And as she looked around the crowded room of sleeping slaves she remembered Na-Groth.
The scar that he had so prominently under his left eye was exactly where she had felt the pain on her face in the dream.
* * * *
When Karne’s men were first told that they were going to construct wings and fly like birds, they argued fiercely.
How could this be possible?
It was in the nature of man to walk on the earth and in the nature of birds to fly in the air. To break the laws of nature could lead to nothing but disaster.
‘True,’ Karne said, ‘but we are not going to break the laws of nature. We are going to use them. A great priestess told me that it can be done, and she will help me now. Trust me. We cannot defeat Groth by ordinary means, we need to take him by surprise, to use means unfamiliar to him. Remember the last time?’
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