by YatesNZ, Jen
‘We'll all meet again at the altar, My Lady,’ Gotham stated grandly, making a swift and triumphant exit.
‘So he's put some sense in your head,’ Lady Darlen commented with acerbity.
Gynevra bared her teeth in an attempt at a nasty grin.
‘That’s one way of putting it.’
The Archinus ignored the blatant disrespect and said, ‘We must get you prepared.’ Then she crossed to the gong once again and rang for Anya.
By the time, three hours later, she stood naked with her handmaidens at the steps to the Sacred Pool and Gotham and two priests stood naked on the other, she knew the wine served them at the feast had been heavily laced with huoda. The old wound on her forehead throbbed but that was to be expected on account of the fearful tumult filling her. But the throbbing in her breasts and loins came from another cause entirely. Archinus Darlen had decided not to risk an unresponsive Goddess.
The haze of orange light wavering in Gotham's aura told Gynevra he'd also drunk of the drug. Her skin burned as if fiery feet danced all over it. Even anger transmuted into passion and desire as she stared across at the Prince, his muscular shoulders and chest gleaming from a liberal application of healing salve. That he was ready for the godly performance expected of him was in no doubt and Gynevra couldn't take her eyes off him. Whatever else her Golden Prince was, none could dispute his noble physique. Where now her antipathy, her angry words of repudiation? Burned up in a flare of huoda, no doubt. When the thought left her flushed with desire instead of simmering with anger, she closed her mind, resigning herself to the power of the moment.
Stepping out of the Temple and into the arena lit by forty low-smoking oil lamps Gynevra felt golden energy fizz all about her and her feet seemed not to touch the cool smooth stones underfoot. Real fire was a hallowed commodity in Fyr Trephyr, used only in holy ritual. The flares, reflected back from the high glass peaks above, created an atmosphere of great spiritual moment.
The procession halted before the altar and the Magus raised his crystal tipped rod of power to the heavens and proclaimed the invocation to prepare the womb of the Goddess to receive the seed of the God. Gynevra's legs became like reeds in the wind, then her whole body began to shake and burn with an all-consuming heat. If they didn't hurry she was going to fall smoldering to the stones.
Four priests lifted her high above their heads, turning her to the four directions as the Magus chanted the powerful paean of thanks to the Gods for the harvest. Heart pounding like a roaring surf in her breast, she was filled with a terrible mixture of impatience and fear. Once tethered to the altar she'd be at the mercy of Gotham as Asar.
Before she could act on the heretical thought of escape that entered her mind at the thought of being under Gotham's protection, they'd laid her face down on the altar and tethered her at wrists and ankles with silken ropes. The gold-net Goddess-gown fell like a drape all about the sacred stone and a flaring ululation of excitement rose from the throats of the crowd pressing against the ropes of the Arena.
But Gotham still had to light the Sacred Flame with his bare hands before he could truly call himself the God, and join with the Goddess; the flame, which was deemed to transform mere mortals into Gods in the eyes of the populace. If the Rafid failed to ignite the Flame then he would be an ordinary man joining with an ordinary woman on a block of stone for the public delectation of the many gathered to watch. But joining by the light of the Sacred Flame symbolized the creative spark, or the life force of the Gods that promised new life for the province and its people for the coming year.
She found if she turned her head sideways she could watch as he climbed the three steps to the huge polished copper bowl that held the highly flammable oil of the Sacred Flame. His body had been massaged with healing salve and the dance of firelight through the gold-net of the God-gown made his perfect warrior's body appear to shimmer with golden light. She knew it was pointless to hope he failed for she had no doubt he would have her with or without benefit of the Sacred Flame and bluster his way through the shame of it later.
Her neck grew tired before he'd raised the energy and she had to let her head fall, but the sullen rumble of noise through the crowd told her he'd failed at the first try. She sensed the highly charged silence of the waiting crowd as he began raising the energy again and then came the hiss of the igniting flame quickly followed by a roar of excitement. With her eyes closed, her ears were more sharply attuned and she could clearly discern shouts of anger and abuse amid the adulation and encouragement. The Prince had lost a lot of popularity that day, and thus no doubt, had she. There would be many who'd say he'd killed a man out of lust, or even more heinous, love, for her.
Before another thought could enter her mind, he'd entered her. Somewhere in her passion-fogged brain she found it to be grateful for the huoda for every time he touched her through that long painful night she was ready and moaning—truly a Goddess desirous of her God.
It was late the following afternoon before she woke, her body stiff and sore, her mind gummy from the after-effects of huoda. She could only groan when Difleer asked if she'd like something to eat or drink. All she wanted was to return to that place of dark retreat where she didn't have to feel—or think. But the housekeeper was not to be put off and lacking the energy to argue, Gynevra sat up and allowed her to arrange the clagrenon behind her. Then, dark eyes shining as if she harbored a delicious secret, she placed a tray across her mistress's knees. There was a small bowl of sweetened, curdled goat's milk with compote of dried plums.
Fruit of any sort was so rare in Fyr Trephyr Gynevra suddenly found she did feel a little hungry. Difleer always seemed to know just what would tempt her appetite, whatever her mood. Picking up the spoon, she was about to take a mouthful when she became aware Difleer seemed to be watching her—in anticipation.
‘What?’ she demanded, spoon poised halfway to her mouth.
‘You've a message,’ Difleer said succinctly, nodding to the tray.
As Difleer spoke, Gynevra spied the folded breskin under the plate, and frowned. ‘If it's from the Prince—or the Archinus—you can take it away and burn it.’
‘It's not.’
Giving Difleer a quick sideways glance, Gynevra reached for the breskin and turned it over to examine the wax seal. It was stamped with the Bull of Nyalda.
‘Oh,’ she murmured, turning it slowly in her hands and staring at it. Her heart had begun to race and her cheeks felt suddenly hot. Only with Meryan had she ever shared her feelings about Taur. She was very close to Difleer and the bond between them had deepened since the day Gotham had found her in the King's high gerlain, but—and her hands trembled as she gripped the breskin—she needed to be alone when she opened Taur's message.
‘Thank you, Difleer. That'll be all,’ she said quietly.
With obvious reluctance the housekeeper left the room.
Putting the tray aside Gynevra lay back and clutched the letter against her breast. Briefly, in her anger yesterday, she'd thought Taur uncaring for not fighting to the death for the right to play her Rafid. Today she acknowledged his life infinitely more precious than a single joining on the altar. Slowly she lifted the seal, keeping the perfect wax image of the Bull intact. It would become another memento to keep hidden among her crystals, to fondle wistfully in dispirited moments. With trembling fingers and eyes threatening to spill tears, she unfolded the brittle breskin.
Golden One,
In gratitude for healing my wound yesterday, I have deposited three mevon in your stadrag at the Temple. I regret I could not be Rafid, but Go' needed the honor much more than I. I fear for him, as rumor has it he hasn't sired a child since falling on my sword. I pray to Ist and Asar for the return of his potency.
Nevertheless you must know, Golden One, I would come from wherever I happen to be to sire your child if you send for me. I but await your word.
Cadal Isidor II, King of Nyalda.
Although it hadn't been Spring Fertility Festival and her quic
kening therefore not crucial, she knew with the same certainty she knew her own name she'd not bear a Child of the Gods this year. Clasping her hands across her empty womb, she wondered how long before her father demanded she contract a sire to accomplish what her Prince had not? To her shame she only hoped she never quickened with his seed and that her father didn't wait too long to issue his orders. She would never risk herself to Gotham's capricious mercy by making the suggestion herself.
As quarter followed quarter Gynevra cherished her time in Ceabryn more and more. While the Prince could still rouse her to passion and desire, she found it increasingly difficult to present a smiling face to his people and even more so to the woman who looked back at her from her silver mirror. If she resisted him he bound and whipped her, or teased and incited her senses until her highly inflammable DragonBlood body played traitor to her mind. She came to suspect this was how he preferred to take her and that he knew and relished how this rankled and tortured her inner being.
There were times when he was a delight to be with but as barren year followed barren year these became markedly fewer. When Gotham began to drop hints of his influence and leadership of what many called a ‘crack-brained scheme’ to return, as the ancients were reputedly able to do, to their Star of Origin, Gynevra didn't know whether to be delighted or horrified. With the land breaking up around them it was time, said an iconoclastic-thinking few, for men to look beyond the paradigm and instead of creating new colonies here on the planet, to search out old truths, old answers to an old problem—survival of the species.
Some of the old priestesses, the old wise women, warned of dire consequences and national doom through the manufacture of the huge crystals needed to generate the power for such a project, but they were ignored or laughed at for being crones, toothless and therefore mindless. Many scoffed at the idea of returning to the Star, saying the old legends were mere fairy stories told to while away the nights in a time when Man was an unevolved spiritual being who didn't understand that Woman had been created to fill his nights in other ways.
Gynevra was now convinced those most vociferous for, and deeply involved in, the Star Quest were an odd collection of misfits and malcontents who hoped to use it as a means to gain the power and kudos to which they had no other recourse. She'd had many long discourses with Lord Dogon, her mentor of the High Mysteries of the Temples, trying to understand why King Ahron would sanction such a project, let alone entrust it to such men as Gotham, a Prince who most likely would never become King, her Uncle Usuf, Ahron's sexually deviant and mentally unstable younger brother, and Lord Kah, the past Minister of Crystal Technologies who'd long since lost the position to a younger and more virile man.
That Lord Kah still had the mental acuity that had enabled him to hold his position for many years, Gynevra considered ruefully as she rode in a closed reica from Temple Meranil back to the Palace on a late winter morning in the fourth year of her partnership with Gotham. It was likely King Orestes knew of the pressure he'd added to her relationship with his son by ordering her to comply with the request of the Magus of Meranil that she honor their Temple by performing the Dawn Latreia from their Sacred Needles. But what he didn't know was how difficult he'd made it for her to avoid the importuning of Lord Kah.
Ever since their first meeting in Archinus Darlen's office at Ceabryn he'd tried to coerce her into working for him. For four years she'd successfully evaded his wiles.
Until this morning. Weary of Gotham's increasing abuse and brutality, she'd lingered in the sanctuary of Meranil’s crystal grottos, putting off her return to the Palace. There Kah had found her and with a few chance words had at last inveigled her into his snare. She still didn't know whether the words had been spoken by chance or by design but when he'd mentioned twelve incendiary crystals and Prince Gotham's mounting impatience to advance the project, she'd realized this was the opportunity she needed to learn exactly what the Star Quest was all about and the true nature of Gotham's involvement in it.
It was the first she'd heard of incendiary crystals, which left her in no doubt no one else had heard of them either. Everyone knew about the huge fire crystal in the mountains north of Fyr Trephyr that was to power the apportation chamber. It had been a contentious issue ever since its manufacture had begun over two years ago. There hadn't been so much as a whisper about any incendiary crystals, which Kah had said were to be the power generators for the fire crystal, and she was getting a headache from worrying about what she'd allowed herself to be bribed into.
For bribery it was, pure and simple. First Kah had taken her deep into the caves beneath Meranil where the tortured cries of the twelve completed but un-programmed fire crystals had severely unsettled the fine balance of her energy vibration. He'd known she'd attune instantly to the unhappy spirits of the crystals. It was why he wanted her assistance so badly. But still she'd refused. Eyes closed, she rubbed ceaselessly at her aching forehead. How could she face Gotham as if she knew nothing more than she had this morning? Who was she to condemn him when she was now just as implicated?
Lord Kah had talked animatedly as he led her back through the coded doors of the caves, sealing each one behind them as they'd passed through. Out on the cliff side again the natural salty breeze had tugged at her hair and a soft black powdery dust drifting in the air had settled on her skin. She'd been glad to return to the protection of the glass pyramids.
Kah had taken her to a seat in the stone gardens, a showcase of the stone masons’ craft without parallel.
Fixing her with his strange colorless eyes, he'd said, ‘Princess Gynevra, what you've just seen is a secret project known to only a few very important people. You now possess highly classified and dangerous information. You do understand you can't speak of this to anyone, don't you?’
‘Lord Kah, I'm not exactly lacking in intelligence.’ She'd surprised herself at the tone of regal impatience in her voice. The haughty royal manner had almost become natural to her since arriving at Fyr Trephyr. ‘What concerns me is the lack of responsibility inherent in creating such powerful crystals when you don't have the power to program them.’
‘Ah, but you do, Princess,’ Kah had been quick to point out, a deeply ingratiating tone to his voice.
Finding her foot tapping with impatience, she'd stilled it and asked, ‘What are they for?’
‘The less you know, Princess, the less you can tell.’ He'd risen to pace back and forth on the cinder path. ‘You may speak of the project to no one, not even the Prince or King.’
A shiver of apprehension had run over her skin then. Clearly Lord Kah was playing a deep game. Deeming it prudent not to leap straight into the issue of the Prince's involvement, she'd asked ‘How can I program the crystals if I don't know what they're to be used for?’
‘It'll take almost two years to complete the programming because the programs are very complicated and will only be coded into the crystals a small part at a time. In that way your understanding of the programs and the codes will be scrambled. You'll know no more at the end of the project than you do now. It's better that way, Princess.’
He'd been trying to control her with fear and she'd known she couldn't let that happen.
‘I haven't agreed to help you yet. Furthermore, I don't believe this ramegram is as secret as you claim. I've heard talk of the Star Quest at the palace and I know the Prince is involved with it.’
The old man had stopped his pacing, and turned abruptly to face her, his mane of fine white hair flying about his shoulders like a veil, and his eyes fierce and piercing.
‘They know nothing!’ he barked. ‘It's but the idle speculation of sensation seekers. As for the Prince, I'm sure you'd know better than any, Princess, how badly he needs to boost his ego and popularity.’
She'd risen furiously to her feet then. Lord Kah had no right to speak of his Prince in such terms.
‘I know no such thing and if I become pregnant I cannot help you so there's no point in furthering this discussion. Onad-sezyr,�
� she'd said icily.
That people were talking of Gotham's infertility and his state of mind she didn't doubt but Lord Kah was the first to dare speak of it directly to her.
‘The Stallion hasn't achieved a successful siring since his injury. That argument carries no weight, Princess!’
There'd been a hint of evil delight in the icy depths of his eyes. She'd barely suppressed a shudder of distaste as she'd brushed haughtily past him.
With an amazing leap of agility the old man had blocked her way and begun in a blustering way, ‘Princess Gynevra, you can't refuse now—,’ then stopping suddenly, a gleam of secretive cunning briefly illuminating the craggy features, he continued, ‘—now you've heard the crystals pleading.’
Without a doubt he'd set out to threaten her and would have done had he not suddenly remembered her concern for the crystals, a concern which she knew in the heaviness of her heart she couldn't ignore.
‘I hear what you aren't saying, Lord Kah, and I won't be threatened. However, I agree, the crystals, now they've been so irresponsibly created, should most certainly be programmed,’ she'd said, returning his challenging stare with a slow haughty one of her own.
By the merest flicker of his eyes he'd acknowledged her reprimand. A crafty smile had twitched his lips giving him the countenance of a weasel. No wonder he and Darlen enjoyed one another's company so much.