by Lori Martin
Nhy said, “The second-high, priestess Siea, greets you.”
Nhy’s mother raised two fingers; they replied in kind. In a hushed tone Nhy went on, “The first-high, priest Laon.”
The withered old man, still sitting, blinked slowly and looked up at them. He raised a scrawny hand and for a bare moment the tip of one finger was laid to his lips. Nhy whispered to them, “Three fingers.”
Mejalna followed instructions. Paither paused, then, his eyes glittering, raised a single finger to his mouth. Nhy inhaled in a horrified gasp. “This is the first-high,” he hissed. “You must not –”
“I am the first-high in my own country,” Paither said calmly. “We are equals.”
The priestess asked a question. Nhy fluttered apologetically. The old man on the floor was still.
Attendants entered with wine, and departed. They were invited to sit – not on the divans, but on the rug with the first-high, in a circle. The first-high remained silent, and seemed to pay so little attention to the proceedings that Paither wondered if he were deaf. Nhy’s mother, priestess Siea, asked all the questions.
He patiently repeated his explanations of himself and of Lindahne to Nhy, who patiently translated them. Occasionally Mejalna was asked to confirm or elaborate; otherwise she too stayed silent. Paither was given no chance to ask questions of his own. Judgment was held suspended in the air, as if he were at a truth-seeking again. He felt that he pleaded a cause to an unsympathetic ear. Annoyance and alarm struggled together in him. Why wasn’t he believed? And what would it mean?
“All we ask,” he finished, “is our freedom and, if it pleases you, help in getting back across the Valtah. We have no wish to disturb your people further.”
When this was translated the priestess simply shook her head. Paither banged down his goblet and the wine spilled. “I will not stay here,” he shot at the priestess. Nhy, catching his emotion, raised his voice as he translated. “My own people have need of me, urgent need. Why are you keeping us?”
“We must gather knowledge, then we shall act,” was her answer. The words had a familiar ring. “Then we shall decide.”
“By Proseras,” he burst out, and was amazed to see that it stunned the room. Nhy exclaimed in horror. The priestess jerked back and covered her ears. With astonishing agility, the old man jumped to his feet and stood trembling over them. Mejalna bit back a nervous laugh. The old man burst into speech.
Bewildered, they look at Nhy, but for several moments he was incapable of translating. He had lost all command of their language. The old man spoke again in a high reedy voice. The sparse white brows over his eyes drew together angrily.
Finally Nhy translated. “You to not speak the god’s name. You to not be impious. You to not defile the sacredness of Great Cult. I tell you this on pain of death.”
Paither wanted badly to look at Mejalna, but dared not take his eyes off the first-high. He said, “I would never be impious to the gods. I worship Pr –” Fingernails dug suddenly into his arm: Mejalna’s warning. He continued carefully, “I worship the Father of Wisdom even, it seems, as you do.”
The priestess Siea lifted her head. Her interrogations began all over again, while the first-high remained on his feet, red eyes fierce and staring. Both sides found it hard to credit that they worshiped alike, though, as Mejalna said later, surely the immortals would reveal themselves to every people. Even the Mendales had once been in Nialia’s hand: as it said in the Book of the Gods, it was only after the birth of dark Sanlin that they had become unfaithful, and been cast out.
Paither thought of the statues; yes, the male figure would be Proseras then, with his emblematic twelea bird. Yet even with this great bond revealed, he had trouble finding common ground in their worship; the Feimennas would explain nothing. It was clear, at least, that the Great Cult was dedicated to Proseras. But they said nothing of Nialia. The goddess was shown without a face.
The Mother, Nhy called her, just as the Lindahnes did, or She of Fate, but he never used the name. To the Feimennas, that was forbidden.
Hoping to win their trust, Paither encouraged Mejalna to describe the Mother’s temple on the First Hill. Their faces changed. She stumbled on, speaking of the traditional services and of the Nialians (“the Mother’s chosen priestesses,” she said, carefully avoiding the name). Her words rushed along, then trailed off. Nhy had stopped translating.
The first-high sat again on the rug. He composed his limbs and closed his eyes. Silence fell. Finally the old man said something, only a few words. Nhy’s face paled. He made reverence.
Paither said, “What is it?”
“I am sorry,” Nhy said. “You are to be held.”
“Held?”
Nhy didn’t answer. Paither said angrily, “I see.”
The two Lindahnes missed the signal, but somehow attendants – guards? soldiers? – had been called to the room. They were armed. Paither’s sword, along with Mejalna’s bow, had been lost in the Valtah. Without any further comment they were marched off. The double doors clanged again.
The priestess and Nhy waited. The flames in the fireplace were dying down. Outside the walls, evening came on. Still no one moved.
The first-high opened his eyes and spoke a final sentence. Nhy had been translating for hours; his mind automatically formed the words in the strangers’ tongue.
“We to test them.”
With what seemed a particular cruelty, the Feimennas imprisoned them separately. After bundling them down deep hallways of the labyrinth, they took Mejalna suddenly aside, and nearly flung her into a tiny square room, bare but for one cot, and windowless. More strangely, one wall of the room was missing, replaced by slanting iron bars, spaced so closely together she couldn’t pass her hand through. She thought it strange (no holding-house in Lindahne or Mendale had such an arrangement) but could see its effectiveness. She demanded to know where Paither was; she shouted to be released; as the guards were both unmoved and uncomprehending of her speech, she soon gave it up.
She paced. They had had wine, and water during the ride here; she returned to the bars and called. One of the guards, a sour-faced woman, nodded curtly. Instead of leading her out, as she expected, the woman opened the great heavy lock and tossed in a chamber pot. Mejalna crimsoned. The bars left the room open to view. After another two interminable hours, she made use of it.
When the evening meal was brought to her she demanded to see Nhy. The guard seemed to know who she meant, but he shook his head at her, and went away.
Rage and humiliation had exhausted her. She laid down on the cot and tried to calm herself. Just this morning she had risen in comfort with Paither. Now a new companion, fear, wrapped icy arms around her.
With her helplessness came a bitter association, crouching in her mind, waiting to leap out and become memory. She worried at it, and finally remembered: This was how she had felt on her home Hill, standing by powerless, watching the enemy destroy the floor of the temple and her family’s honor... and already beginning to suspect who had betrayed them.
Her tears were silent. She wouldn’t let the guards hear. After a time her shoulders stilled. As she fell into dreams she wished she hadn’t quarreled with Paither.
A warm light shone on her closed lids. Sounds hissed at her. She rolled over and sat up.
Nhy stood at the bars, holding a smoky torch. Its burnt-ash smell crept between them. The room beyond the waving torchlight was pitch and she stumbled crossing to him. No sentries were in sight.
“Where’s Paither? What have –”
“Please, please,” he whispered, gesturing for her to lower her voice. His dark hair stood out like spikes from his skull. His eyes were sunk in shadows.
She said, “Please help us.”
“You are not the people I thought you, you are not heretics. You to do follow the gods. It is strange to me, out of all your language and mine, our names for the immortals to be the same. No, no, don’t speak them. It is not respect.”
“T
he goddess can have only one name. In Lindahne we say it with honor. Please, Nhy. You’re the only one I can even communicate with. What have we done wrong? Why are we being held?”
He glanced down the hallway. “The first-high is very great, and very old. He alone, he must to save everything.”
She squeezed her fingers through the bars and touched his hand. He leaned his body in closer. She said, “If I’m to be put to death, at least tell me the reason.”
She could almost see him retreat, and she felt a wave of despair; now he would say nothing. The torch gave off another stifling cloud. Finally, still deep in thought, nearly chanting, he said, “In the long ago time, there were great water folk among us. In the long ago time, some of our men and women braved the river. In the long ago time, they crossed the Valtah, and came unto Mendale.”
He stopped. She said softly, “Your people went to them? So that’s how the Mendale travelers first came here. Your people brought them back, showed them how to cross the river.”
“In friendship we to bring the Mendales to us. They were... ignorant? yes, ignorant... of the gods, but wished to learn. So we thought. Great Cult was still complete then, the Mother was with us. The first-high was her priestess. It is said, they to foretold the destruction, but the first-high had fallen in love with one of the Mendale travelers. She would not to listen to the warnings. And the Mendales, they said they would learn of us, that peace would live between our peoples.”
“Priestesses of Fate?” Surely that meant Nialian women. So the Feimennas had ignored a direct warning from the goddess. “What happened?”
“The Mendales, heretics... blasphemers, blasphemers... tried to overthrow Great Cult. There was blood to spilled here, on the sacred ground, within these sacred walls. It is to said that the fighting was very fierce. The first-high was killed by her false lover. All the other priestesses of Fate were destroyed.”
“All? But surely –”
“It is our punishment,” Nhy said sadly, his thoughts returning to her, slowly. “We fought them off, we won. But we were wrong, to call heretics to worship at Great Cult. And the first-high betrayed her great trust for a mortal passion. Terrible sins. And so we are punished: our priestesses have gone, our Fate is empty. The Mother has not returned. She is the Missing One.”
“Truly, in all this time?” No marvel, then, that they spoke of being incomplete, if the goddess had turned her back on them. She pitied him.
“The Wise One remains,” he said, meaning Proseras, husband of Nialia. “He oversees us, as we to grow in knowledge. But we can no longer celebrate their Eternal Marriage... In the long ago, we learned we have much to learn, to be a better people. When we are,” he paused again for the word. “When we are to redeem, someday, we will to be forgiven.”
“So you save everything, to grow in wisdom. And there isn’t a single true-chosen among you? I mean, no new priestesses of Fate?”
“Never, since that time.”
It was true, then. She shivered. She was in a country the goddess herself had renounced. Suddenly she remembered one of the tales, the story of when Proseras had abandoned the divine hallways. It had always been one of the more obscure writings in the Book of the Gods; people at home argued about its meaning. I have dreamt another people. Yes, it could be. It must be. It meant the Feimennas. She said, “No wonder you chained us, when your people thought we were Mendales.”
“There were those,” he said, suddenly frank, “who said the fishers should have left you to drown. But now you are here. Some think you are deliver to us, to make good the ancestor’s sins. But the first-high would to say nothing, until he saw you.”
“But now he knows we’re not Mendales.”
“He knows that is what you say.”
“But –”
“And he knows the Mendales to deceived us once before.”
“What do you think?” she asked his alien eyes.
“I have to believe you,” he said.
They leaned with their faces against the bars, nearly resting their cheeks together. Mejalna said, “Is Paither all right? Have you seen him?”
“Not yet, but I know he is well. I to go to him now, I will to tell him this too. It is all I can do.”
“I wanted to pray. But I felt the goddess wouldn’t hear me. I thought – I thought it was because of something else.”
“It is because you are here. She will not to listen. Pray to the Wise One instead. He has stayed with us. I take my evening of you.”
Paither was awake when Nhy came. His guards had moved off. He was testing the strength of the bars, trying to loosen one. He heard Nhy’s story in silence, and nodded.
“You are not much to surprise to be,” Nhy said.
“In a way. In a way not really. I saw the statues. But now tell me, how I can make your first-high see that I’m not a threat? That our people might truly be kin?”
“Your coming is very... significant? Of great thing. The first-high must learn what it means.”
“Mejalna and I are the ones in danger, aren’t we? Will we be killed?”
“I am sorry. I do not know what will happen.”
Nhy’s torch was nearly out. It gave a spluttering hiss. Paither said, “Thank you for trusting me.”
“There is something I have not understood about the long ago. Why did the Mendales attack us, when we to offer friendship? Why should they try to make of us... make us... ?” He couldn’t find the word. “Less than?”
“Conquered.” Nhy repeated the word to himself. Paither said, “That’s their nature. They live for mortal power, because they’ve never felt the divine. Nhy, I owe you a truth in return.”
“Yes?”
“Some years ago, the Mendales also attacked my country.” He took a long breath.
“Yes?”
“And my people are conquered.”
Outside an endless day and night passed; the sun went through another circuit; again darkness came on. But there was no window to the outer world to mark the time for Paither, who paced or slept fitfully. Twice they sent in cool water for him to sponge himself. His rations were small but, with no appetite, he left most of it uneaten. The meat broth sat in a corner for hours, drawing buzzing insects, until they cleared it away. Nhy didn’t return.
His skin crawled with waiting. All this time, was their first-high still thinking? Saving?
Sanlin take him, he thought. He passed into an angry sleep, but his dreams were savage and soon woke him again.
The heavy stillness and the lowering of his own spirit told him it was deepest night, before the turn to morning. Shivers ran up his arms, lifting the hair. He sat up.
The passage guards were murmuring. New torches were lit, flaring streaks of red into his cell. His wall of bars was blocked by dark shapes, then it swung inward with a clanging noise. Guards behind raised their lights and showed him Nhy, the priestess Siea, and the first-high. Nhy spoke to the guards, who hung the torches on wall-scones.
Paither repressed a sarcastic desire to welcome them to his home. His eyes flared but he said nothing. In the meanwhile, the first-high was paying no attention to him. He gave some order to which Nhy acquiesced.
Paither stood by in confused anger as his beddings and pot were removed and the floor swept clear. A strip of rainbowed rug was set down for Siea and the first-high, who sat on it cross-legged; Paither made no movement. Nhy wouldn’t meet his eyes. A final bustle at the bars brought in Mejalna. The guards withdrew. There was a pause.
Mejalna said, “Paither,” and started towards him.
Nhy thrust out an arm to stop her. “You will sit there.” He pointed to the corner. She looked at Paither, who nodded.
The first-high began to speak, Nhy murmuring the translation behind him. “We must have the truth. In the long ago, we were to deceived by the people across the river. We will not to be so again.” For the first time the old man raised his piercing eyes to him. “Perhaps the Mother tests us once again As we must test you. Will you to do
this?”
Mejalna, crouched in the corner, waited for his protests, arguments: what kind of test? But Paither said, “Yes.”
The first-high nodded. Beside him on the rug, Siea drew out a long velvet carry-case and placed it on the stone floor before him. The old man’s hands, shaky with age, unwrapped the folds.
Nhy stepped to Paither and, without a word of permission, opened the brooch which held Paither’s short cloak together and drew it off. His fingers opened the knot of his sash. Paither eyed him from beneath lowered lids but did not move. Nhy drew the colorful robe the Feimennas had given him over his head, lifting the under-robe at the same time, and left him naked.
Paither was expressionless. At a sign from Nhy he kicked off his sandals. Straight to the old man he said, “I call on the Mother to witness, I’m telling you the truth.”
Siea was pouring out a pale liquid into a tiny silver cup. Palms flat, she offered it to the first-high, who took one swallow and handed it back. Siea did the same and held it out to Nhy. After a moment’s hesitation, Nhy brought the cup to Mejalna.
Her lips formed a question; he shook his head. “You must stay silent,” he whispered.
It tasted like a bitter wine, of a bitter harvest, with a something unfamiliar overlaid that stung at the back of her throat. Nhy clucked at her; she had taken too much. He whisked the cup out of sight. Paither, still standing unclothed in the chill, wasn’t offered any.
He had gone far inward, to the place, perhaps, where anger and mortal striving begin. The torchlight played shadows across his bared skin, showing lines against his tanned arms and shoulders, the pale marble of his chest, the darker curling hair of his loins, the taut hard muscles of his calves.
The first-high shuffled to him and took him by the flesh of his upper arm, stretching the blue seal of his shoulder forward. In the shadows it look black as dried blood.
Mejalna tilted her head. Kneeling, the priestess Siea was lighting something else she had produced from the carry case; like a conjurer, she thought. Whatever it was it smoked up quickly – incense, perhaps? No, the scent was too bitter.The torches seemed brighter. Nhy had taken two down from the sconces. One in each hand, he stepped to Paither.