* * *
30
VALSORIA TOOK A took a long pole from behind the altar and dipped one end of it into the well of lava. It came out flaming. She waved it in the air, tracing arcs of fire against the darkness as the chanting swelled, deepened, boomed off the walls until it was almost painful to hear. Then she touched the fire to the altar, which burst into a dazzling blaze, although it never did appear to be diminished by the burning. Its flickering brightness revealed a high pointed archway at the far end of the platform, closed with double doors that gleamed like polished metal.
Calla and one of the red surplices paced to the doors and swung them open just far enough to allow a slim person to pass through. Valsoria and her other assistant removed the veil from the kneeling girl, raised her between them, drew her towards the archway, directed her gently through the doors. She drifted like someone in a trance. On the instant that the doors closed behind her, the chanting ceased and all the lights went out. The fire on the altar died as abruptly as if a black pall had been dropped over it and the Daughters must have snuffed their candles on the same cue, so that the only light was that odd, headache-inducing red glimmer from the lava well.
And then we waited. Gradually, as my eyes adjusted to the diffuse blood-coloured light, I could distinguish four motionless figures on the platform by the blurred shadows they cast across the altar, three long, one very short. After a while I could even pick out Valsoria's face, a dim reddish circle with two black shadows where the eyes would be, and it seemed that those eyes were fixed unswervingly on me. I shifted on the bench with discomfort. The only sound was a subdued bubbling and gurgling from the depths of the pit.
The near-silence and the dimness dragged on, but other small sounds began to intrude. Rinn was swaying gently beside me; when I turned to look at her, I could see her eyes, wide and unblinking, picking up the red glow. The rustle of her robe had a multitude of whispered echoes. Faintly at first, then more distinctly, I began to pick up a pungency in the air that reminded me of the taste of masollar. That was just before I heard the first scream.
It sounded muffled and far away, a high shrill keening; nobody else seemed to notice it. When I turned to Shree, his eyes were as blank and unseeing as Rinn's, and I had to shake his shoulder to get his attention. He blinked at me in that hellish light as if just wakening from a not very pleasant dream. His body tensed as the screaming sounded again. He started to rise, and I pulled him back on to the stone bench.
At that moment, flames burst again from the altar, achingly bright after the long red darkness, bringing Rinn out of her trance with a little start. This time Calla and her colleagues moved very fast, virtually sprinting to the great arched doors to swing them open—they seemed stubbornly heavy now, resisting the women's efforts while the screams behind them rose in volume and intensity—and then they were open, and the unveiled Daughter burst through and was caught in Calla's arms before she could rush headlong into the fiery altar.
She stopped screaming and started to babble in a high, breathy voice. I could distinguish no words, neither Vassashin nor Sheranik, not even the Naarhil tongue of Oballef. The girl would have fallen if Calla and the other had not held her, but they hauled her between them to where the Divinatrix was standing beside the altar and let her drop to her knees at Valsoria's feet. So softly at first that it was almost below the level of my hearing, the Daughters around us recommenced their chanting. The girl's delirious rush of words rose to a shriek and then cut off as she collapsed twitching in front of the altar. At least the twitches indicated that the unfortunate girl was still alive. Then it was Valsoria's turn.
Rinn, wide-awake, clutched my arm. The fire-gods had spoken—we were about to have their words translated for us. I knew what Rinn wanted to hear, and was pretty certain that the Divinatrix knew as well; I suspected the servants who attended us in Vass, and the novice Daughters who tended us here, had good ears and some training in picking up whatever information the Oracle needed. Indeed, I had dropped a few false but harmless hints myself, just to see if they would show up in Valsoria's pronouncements.
But that day we were doomed to disappointment. Valsoria, talking softly but with a penetrating power, directed her remarks to one of the Vassashin worthies who had accompanied us from Vass. The message concerned an additional wife he was contemplating taking, and it appeared the fire-gods thought it was rather a good idea, assuming the prospective bridegroom made the proper sacrifices and dedicated a reasonable percentage of the bride's marriage portion to the use of the Sacellum. I lost interest altogether when she got into the financial details—it seemed a trivial sort of revelation to risk a young woman's life for.
And that was the end of the first day's divination.
Out in the open again, Rinn sulked visibly as she and I walked across the courtyard towards our quarters.
"I will have that witchwoman's skin for leather," she fumed. "Not a word to me—to me! Sitting all that time in that dark stinking hole, and for what? For nothing! I'll—"
"Rinn, my petal."
"What?" She rounded on me.
"Don't be angry with the Divinatrix. Remember, she only translates what the fire-gods say. We'll be here another three days—I'm sure the fire-gods will speak to you before we go back to Vass."
"But I am Rinn of Miishel! The fire-gods should speak to me first! I honour this miserable little hole just by being here!"
I improvised hastily. "No doubt they are aware of that honour, my lovely flower, and are simply disposing of the minor bits of business first. Or perhaps their message to you is of such power and magnitude and astonishing significance that they have to," I paused for a moment to grope for impressive words, and gave up, "they have to work up to it. Or something like that." My mind wasn't really on this. I had better things to think about, Calla, my son Verolef, the Naarhil texts I presumed to be in Valsoria's possession.
Rinn sniffed. "It was a dishonour to allow those stinking fish-merchants to come with us at all. Perhaps I should have them killed, yes, and then all the messages will be for me. Yes?"
I pretended to think it over. "Perhaps you'd better not; it's a bit extreme, my shining star. And you know you mustn't try to hurry the gods—even the little gods of a place like Vassashinay."
"That for the gods of Vassashinay—" she started, but her next words were drowned in a thundering boom from the mountaintop. It was not me this time, but I could not have timed it better myself. The ground shuddered. Rinn squealed and clutched my arm until the tremors subsided. Her pique had been shaken out of her.
"Careful what you say, petal," I said to reinforce the lesson. "Gods are gods, wherever you may find them. Come on, I'll take you back to your bedchamber, there's time for you to rest a while."
Later that afternoon, while I made up for the sleep I'd lost the night before and the sleep I dearly hoped to lose that night, Shree and Chasco went to Villim to do some shopping. Smug with success, they returned just as dusk was falling. I awoke suddenly with a faceful of water and saw Shree standing beside the pallet with a beaker in his hand and a broad grin on his face. Spluttering, I sat up.
"So how did you do?" I asked, mopping my face with the edge of the blanket. "Did you find a suitable lorsk?"
He sat down on the edge of the pallet. "We found one that Chasco's reasonably pleased with. It stinks to high heaven and it needs a new sail, but he says the hull is sound. It'll get us past Zaine, anyway."
"How about provisions?"
He ticked them off on his fingers. "Five barrels of fresh water, four bales of dried loaves, three kegs of cheese and one of wine, ten leathers of dried meat and fifteen of dried fruit, assorted, and one skin of oil. If we catch a few fish and ration the water, assuming four adults and one child, Chasco says we can go for two months without landfall."
"You've done very well," I said with genuine admiration. "When will it be ready?"
"We've promised the chandler five palots extra if it's ready and loaded by the next night b
ut two—the night before we're scheduled to return to Vass. Here's the beauty of it: the Tasiil's being beached tomorrow."
I lay back again with my arms crossed behind my head and grinned up at the ceiling. "The Frath won't be able to chase us for days."
Chasco came in just in time to hear this. He closed the door behind him and came to stand respectfully beside the pallet. "It won't do to be cocksure, Lord Tigrallef. The Tasiil isn't the only ship in Vassashinay. Some of those boats on the beach are built to be fast. If they decide to give chase, we'll need to have a good start on them."
"That's no problem," I said. "We'll sail as close to midnight as we can, and nobody will miss us until late in the morning. I'll arrange things with Calla tonight, so she can have herself and Verolef ready when the time comes. What a plan, Chasco! Of course, there is one thing I'll regret."
"Rinn's golden body?"
I looked severely at Shree. "Valsoria's Naarhil texts. I doubt now if I'll have a chance to ask her about them."
"Never mind," said Shree. "Didn't the Lady tell you she'd translate the Caveat for you someday?"
"I don't trust the Lady."
"Does that mean you trust Valsoria?"
Did it indeed? I frowned and started to formulate a cautious positive reply, hedged about with several ifs and maybes, when a loud shout burst inside my head with a devastating explosion of white light and shattered all thought.
No! No! No!
I gasped for breath and held my ringing skull together with both hands. "I don't know yet," I said weakly.
Shree and Chasco weren't looking at me. They were examining a little pile of terracotta-coloured dust on the table where the jug had been standing a moment ago. Shree turned to me, shaking his head.
"You're going to have to stop doing that, Tig," he said. "What if we have to pay for these?"
I slipped out of the Sacellum that evening as soon as the courtyard was empty and made my way to the same rocky stretch of mountainside where Calla and I had met the night before. It was a peaceful night, windless, and the only clouds were a few wreaths high on the neck of the volcano. I stretched out on the smooth grass and lost myself so completely in golden images of the future that I did not hear Calla's footsteps until the Lady whispered: she's coming.
I sat up. Good. Now perhaps you'd lose yourself for a little while?
Scion, you cannot deny me for ever.
I can try, can't I? But we'll discuss that later. For now, just go.
There was no reply, but that was no guarantee of anything. I sighed, wondering if I would ever feel unwatched, normal and in full possession of my own self again—but at that moment Calla came around the corner of the path, pulling the veil from her face as she went, and my heart burst all over again with the miracle of finding her. Suddenly, it did not seem to matter whether the Lady was watching or not; I felt as if the entire population of the known world could be standing around, even cheering us on with ribald cries, and we would still have been the only two people under that jewelled southern sky.
* * *
31
CALLA HAD NOT come empty-handed; she had brought with her a small skin of wine, real wine, not masollar, a loaf of fresh bread, two beakers, and couple of strange, sweet, thick-skinned Vassashin fruit. These all lay forgotten for some time where she had dropped them on the edge of the clearing, until at last she untangled herself and went to retrieve the sack. The moon was considerably higher than when she had first arrived.
"Go on then," she said, pouring me out a beaker of wine, "tell me what this failproof plan of yours is."
I explained about the lorsk. Her face grew graver as she listened.
"When?"
"The third night from now. We're supposed to be returning to Vass the next evening, right after the final session with the Oracle—I suppose Rinn's message from the fire-gods is scheduled for that session?"
Calla grinned, a little shamefacedly. "Your princess is paying by the day—the Divinatrix wouldn't risk satisfying her too early, not our Valsoria."
I raised my beaker. "To Valsoria! Long may she rule. Though you might tell her to toss Rinn a few small prophecies in the next couple of sessions, just to keep her interest up."
"I believe Valsoria has planned something of the sort," Calla said drily. She passed me a chunk of bread.
"Are all the Sacellum's secrets open to you?" I asked, thinking of the Naarhil texts.
The moonlight was just strong enough to show that she was blushing. "I know how the Oracle works, if that's what you mean. There's not much to it."
"I'm not judging you, Calla. I'm sure Valsoria gives excellent value. That's more than can be said for most cults. And she seems fairly benign."
"More than that," Calla said. "She saved Vero's life, you know. I owe her for that. We both owe her for that."
I swallowed a mouthful of bread. "How did she save him?"
Calla leaned against me and nestled her head on my shoulder. "By naming him the Kalkissann at the moment of his birth. He'd have been thrown to the fire-gods otherwise, because the Vassashin thought he was the child of a Sherkin father. Even if I'd confessed the truth, he'd still have been killed for the quarter-measure of Sherkin blood he got from me."
"Did they tell you that?"
"They didn't have to, it was obvious. They were still killing the garrison when I arrived. There's a lot of bitterness behind those smiling faces."
"I've seen their idea of a war memorial. Did you try to escape?"
"I was never given the chance. I wasn't badly treated, but I know just how a sow must feel in a piglet farm. I was all set to denounce myself when he was born, so I could die with him—but Valsoria was there, and she put her hand over my mouth and hissed at me to shut up."
"And that's when she declared him the Kalkissann."
"That's right." Calla raised her beaker in another salute.
I didn't. "But up to then, you were sure he'd be killed at birth?"
"There was no reason to think anything else."
"So," I said thoughtfully, "Valsoria had a sudden change of heart."
"Perhaps."
I frowned at the moon. "But why? I wouldn't take her for the sentimental sort. Quite the reverse." I was thinking of Coll's bloodthirsty stories.
Calla shrugged. "I'm not sure of that. Mostly I think she kept us alive out of true goodness of heart. She seems very fond of Vero, almost like a grandmother."
"Yet you say you're not sure."
She grimaced. "I don't know what she has in mind for him in the end. Saving Vassashinay? How? What does poor little Vero have to do? Or is it just something she dreamed up on the instant, to save his life? I wish I knew."
"You don't trust her, do you?" I turned Calla's face so that I could see her expression. She looked troubled.
She sighed. "For all her good intentions, Tig, the Divinatrix is really a kind of milcher. The whole Sacellum is based on a lie. There's no magic in the fire-mountain; there's a kind of poisonous air that comes up from the mountain's belly and fills the oracle chamber, and anyone who breathes it for too long chatters like a madwoman for a while. That's all there is to it. And masollar is just ordinary wine with that air bubbled into it."
"And the Divinatrix is free to make what she wants out of the chatter, is that correct?"
"She means well for her people, Tig."
"I'm sure she does. Actually, this method of divination isn't unique. The dreamflowers used by the Niltha cult outside Canzitar have an almost identical effect, also I seem to remember an obscure little sect on one of the Satheli islands—"
She laughed out loud, breaking the uneasy mood. "You haven't changed at all." She kissed me hard, possibly to shut me up or to change the subject, and examined me in the moonlight with a half-smile on her lips. "It's true, you know. You're just as you were six years ago—maybe a little thinner."
"You haven't changed either," I said hastily.
"Oh yes I have. There are lines on my forehead," she guided my
hand to them, "and the skin is thickening under my chin, and I found my first white hair two years ago, on my twenty-eighth birthday. But you—"
You cannot feel the claw of time while I am in you. The two are one, Scion.
Shut up. Go away.
To Calla I said, "You look just the same to me." I kissed her, and then sighed; it seemed that the night was passing too quickly, and we still had business to do. "Calla, we haven't much time left. We need to talk about the lorsk. You'll have to find a way to take Verolef to the head of the road that night, so we can all go down to the harbour together. Can you do that?" She had sobered as well. She heaved a sigh that was so deep it seemed to start at her toes. "Yes, yes. But I don't feel quite right about it."
"Why? Chasco says the lorsk is a solid little ship. He should know." An unwelcome thought struck me. "You do want to come with us, don't you?"
"Of course I do." She picked up one of the Vassashin fruit and began to peel it in an absent-minded, finger-busying sort of way. "It's only that Valsoria has been kind to us, no matter what her reasons were—and I don't know what will happen when the Vassashin find their Great Saviour has left them."
"I can tell you the worst that will happen," I said. "The Sacellum's income will drop."
Her profile was still troubled. "Doesn't it seem ungrateful, just to leave without a word? Perhaps . . ."
"Perhaps what?"
"Perhaps I've been wrong in doubting Valsoria. Milcher or not, there's more to her than shows on the surface. Perhaps we could trust her—we could ask her if you could take sanctuary in the Sacellum. Perhaps she'd let us stay together . . ."
I turned Calla to face me. "I have to leave."
"Why? We could be happy in Vassashinay."
I hushed her impatiently with a hand over her mouth. "You don't understand. Even if we could trust Valsoria, the Frath Major wouldn't respect the sanctuary of the Sacellum—if he had to, he'd slaughter the Vassashin in droves to get me back. And someday, if he does get me back in his hands, I believe something more terrible than you can imagine is bound to happen. No, I have to go."
Gil Trilogy 2: Scion's Lady Page 23