Kate Elliott - Jaran

They walked down the hall in silence. Nothing disturbed their progress. No doors shut, no feet sounded but their own, no voices pierced the heavy air. Yet beneath her feet, Tess felt that the stone itself was alive, a bewildering sensation after so long in the open. She walked on her toes, cautious and ready, a hand on the hilt of her saber. It took her almost the entire length of the hall to sort through her thoughts and let her old self emerge above half a year's journey with the jaran.

The answer was so simple it was laughable. The palace must still be alive: with machines. Hidden, of course. Silent. Meant, like servants, to do their work unobtrusively, successful only if they went entirely unseen. The jaran priests, having no such conception of technology, had almost certainly never noticed any machines, had probably felt this strange trembling life to be the touch of the gods on their greatest temple.

Shadows mottled the scalloped ceiling. Reliefs lined the upper walls. It was the epitome of Chapalii architecture: breathtaking, ornate, and utterly useless, built for the sole purpose of having people walk from one end to the other. To be wealthy enough to spend money on things that could only be used once was to be wealthy enough to matter in Chapalii society.

"If you push there, behind that niche," said the priestess, "the door will move." They passed through into an enormous chamber, its decorations too profuse to be distinguishable in the gloom. This chamber gave on to a second, and thence to a third.

A huge monument, this was, and after unknown years still in incredibly fine condition. But the Chapalii prized efficiency as much as wealth. The machines ought to work for centuries at full capacity. The palace would be cleaned by mobile scrubbers programmed to vanish into the walls before they could offend the fastidious Chapalii eye. Hadn't she and Dr. Hierakis once tried to catch the scrubbers at it, that time on Odys, and failed? Such a palace, heated by fluid mechanics, buffered from the elements by diamond coating or some more advanced technique, could exist for generations.

"Here," said the priestess with humor. "You have forgotten me, Terese Soerensen. We turn here. Those of us who live here live in the back rooms, which are less overwhelming."

Tess smiled slightly and followed her into a less ostentatious corridor that led to humbler spaces. Also, doubtless, to the quarters for the stewards and the ke. Apartments for the nobility would be on the second floor, but the main maintenance room would be down here-that was what she had to find.

And she knew that it was worth it, this entire journey. Everything else aside, all the other joys and sorrows, everything she had learned and lost and become, this knowledge would be of priceless value to Charles. If spy she must be, spy she would become. She would leave here knowing why this palace existed and what the Chapalii were trying to hide.

"If you will wait here." Tess sat obediently on a bench in a narrow hallway while the priestess disappeared inside a room. Two torches gave a glum light to the corridor, and she could see into several rooms, scarcely more than closets, that showed signs of habitation: A couch with an old stain on the cushions, a table with a cloth on it, a sandal forgotten in a corner.

The priestess returned and led Tess down a white-walled hallway into a bright room. Twelve white-robed men and women regarded her, unsmiling. Tess blinked, rubbing at her eyes. She could not make out the source of the light. Walls of luminous stone lined the chamber, and it was bare of furnishing or ornamentation except for a cylindrical fountain at the far end, about twelve meters from her. While the priests studied her, she studied the fountain. It was a clear, hollow structure, intricately carved to reveal six spouts curled within, releasing a fine spray of rainbows and water that trickled into a basin and thence into a drain in the floor.

"You have ridden down the Avenue at sunset, knowing but not knowing what the Laws are, with a man who is but is not your kin," said the priestess. "Because your name is not known here, at this shrine where the gods' breath still lies heavy over the earth, the gods must judge you. Drink from the fountain, child. Drink your fill."

Tess looked around the circle of faces. They were all serious, dispassionate, yet none was unsympathetic. This was a test, but she could not connect it with what she knew of this culture or with Ilya's distress. She walked up to the fountain and knelt, cupping her hands to get a handful of water from the basin, and sipped at it, a bare touch. Lowered her hands slightly to watch the priests. Lifted her hands. Before her lips touched the water again, her mouth stung.

She swore and jumped up. The water in her hands spilled onto the stone. She rubbed her hands roughly on her trousers.

"It burns!" She sat down, screwing up her face, trying to rub the stinging off of her lips. But if this was the gods' drink, she had surely failed to meet with their approval. And the penalty for sacrilege-she stood up. They would not kill her without a fight.

But they were all smiling. And none of them was armed.

"You have a certain enthusiasm for the truth which is refreshing." The priestess walked forward. "May I show you to a room for the night now?"

Tess did not move. "That was all? That was the test? I'm safe?"

"My child," said the priestess, a little scoldingly, perhaps, "no violence is ever done in this shrine."

"But the drink?"

"The water is poisonous. A sip does no harm, but were you dishonest or frightened, or greedy enough, you would have drunk your fill."

"And died."

The priestess shrugged.

"Does everyone who enters here whose name is-not known-have to pass this test?" she asked, suddenly curious about the Chapalii.

"No, only those who have transgressed the Law in some fashion."

"But how did I-?"

"First, child, you may call me Mother Avdotya. Second, you may come with me to your room. There is much to do if pilgrims are expected, and no time for all of us to stay with you."

Tess submitted. The hallway seemed very dark after the bright intensity of the fountain chamber. The priestess led her with her bowl of light down another hall, up stairs, and along a narrower corridor until they reached a room furnished with a single bed, a table, a chair, and a small window. And Myshla's saddlebags.

"You may sleep here. Yeliana will come for you in the morning."

Tess sat on the bed, hands folded in her lap. "May I ask some questions, Mother Avdotya?"

"Yes. You have earned that right."

Tess sighed and decided to begin where the ground seemed safest. "How long has this shrine been here?"

"I do not know."

"Who built it?"

"I do not know."

"How does it stay so-clean? Are there many of you here?"

"Never more than twenty-seven. It remains pure by its own devices."

"How does it stay light?"

"We have torches. The other lights come, perhaps, from the stone. I do not know."

"Does anyone know?"

She chuckled. ' 'Do you think I am the old half-wit they have sent to you to keep you ignorant?" Tess blushed. Out the window she saw only dark and stars and the skeletal outlines of trees. "No, child. I am Eldest here. That is why I went out to the Avenue, when it was seen that a sunset ride had begun."

Tess could not yet bring herself to speak of the Avenue. "What will Bakhtiian do tonight?"

"He will remain outside. I hope it proves a cold night. I know from experience that stone is hard ground on which to kneel for so many hours, especially when the penitent does not know whether he has brought about another person's death.'' Tess winced away from the merciless chill in the old woman's voice. "Now I will leave you. You have a great deal to think about."