Marion Bradley - The Fall Of Atlantis

Once, in mad raving, a word and a gesture had slipped unaware, from his chela, Reio-ta. Riveda had noted both, meaningless as they had seemed at the moment. Later, he had seen the same gesture pass between Rajasta and Cadamiri when they thought themselves unobserved; and Micon, in the delirium of agony which had preceded the quiet of his last hours, had muttered Atlantean phrases—one a duplicate of Reio-ta's. Riveda's brain had stored all these things for future reference. Knowledge, to him, was something to be acquired; a thing hidden was something to be sought all the more assiduously.

Tomorrow, Micon's body was to be burned, the ashes returned to his homeland. That task he, Riveda, should undertake. Who had a better right than the Priest who had consecrated Micon's son to the power of Ahtarrath?

III

At daybreak, Riveda ceremoniously drew back the curtains, letting sunlight flood in and fill the apartment where Micon lay. Dawn was a living sea of ruby and rose and livid fire; the light lay like dancing flames on the dark dead face of the Initiate, and Riveda, frowning, felt that Micon's death had ended nothing.

This began in fire, Riveda thought, it will end in fire ... but will it be only the fire of Micon's funeral? Or are there higher flames rising in the future ... ? He frowned, shaking his head. What nonsense am I dreaming? Today, fire will burn what the Black-robes left of Micon, Prince of Ahtarrath ... and yet, in his own way, he has defeated all the elements.

With the sun's rise, white-robed Priests came and took Micon up tenderly, bearing him down the winding pathway into the face of the morning. Rajasta, his face drawn with grief, walked before the bier; Riveda, with silent step and bent head, walked after. Behind them, a long procession of white-mantled Priests and Priestesses in silver fillets and blue cloaks followed in tribute to the stranger, the Initiate who had died in their midst ... and after these stole a dim grey shadow, bowed like an old man shaken with palsied sobbing, grey cloak huddled over his face, his hands hidden within a patched and threadbare robe. But no man saw how Reio-ta Lantor of Ahtarrath followed his Prince and brother to the flames.

Also unseen, high on the summit of the great pyramid, a woman stood, tall and sublime, her face crimsoned with the sunrise and the morning sky ablaze with the fire of her hair. In her arms a child lay cradled, and as the procession faded to black shadows against the radiant light in the east, Domaris held her child high against the rising sun. In a steady voice, she began to intone the morning hymn:

O beautiful upon the Horizon of the East, Lift up the light unto day, O eastern Star. Day-star, awaken, arise! Joy and giver of light, awake. Lord and giver of life, Lift up thy light, O Star of Day, Day-star, awaken, arise!

Far below, the flames danced and spiralled up from the pyre, and the world was drowned in flame and sunlight.

I

"Lord Rajasta," Deoris greeted the old Priest anxiously. "I am glad you are come! Domaris is so—so strange!"

Rajasta's lined face quirked into an enquiring glance.

Deoris rushed on impetuously, "I can't understand—she does everything she should, she isn't crying all the time any more, but—" The words came out as a sort of wail: "She isn't there!"

Nodding slowly, Rajasta touched the child's shoulder in a comforting caress. "I feared this—I will see her. Is she alone now?"

"Yes, Domaris wouldn't look at them when they came, wouldn't answer when they spoke, just sat staring at the wall—" Deoris began to cry.

Rajasta attempted to soothe her, and after a few moments managed to discover that "they" referred to Elis and Mother Ysouda. His wise, old eyes looked down into Deoris's small face, white and mournful, and what he saw there made him stroke her hair lingeringly before he said, with gentle insistence, "You are stronger than she, now, though it may not seem so. You must be kind to her. She needs all your love and all your strength, too." Leading the still sniffling Deoris to a nearby couch, and settling her upon it, he said, "I will go to her now."

In the inner room, Domaris sat motionless, her eyes fixed on distances past imagining, her hands idle at her sides. Her face was as a statue's, still and remote.

"Domaris," said Rajasta softly. "My daughter."

Very slowly, from some secret place of the spirit, the woman came back; her eyes took cognizance of her surroundings. "Lord Rajasta," she acknowledged, her voice little more than a ripple in the silence.

"Domaris," Rajasta repeated, with an oddly regretful undertone. "My Acolyte, you neglect your duties. This is not worthy of you."

"I have done what I must," Domaris said tonelessly, as if she did not even mean to deny the accusation.

"You mean, you make the gestures," Rajasta corrected her. "Do you think I do not know you are willing yourself to die? You can do that, if you are coward enough. But your son, and Micon's—" Her eyes winced, and seeing even this momentary reaction, Rajasta insisted, "Micon's son needs you."

Now Domaris's face came alive with pain. "No," she said, "even in that I have failed! My baby has been put to a wet nurse!"

"Which need not have happened, had you not let your grief master you," Rajasta charged. "Blind, foolish girl! Micon loved and honored and trusted you above all others—and you fail him like this! You shame his memory, if his trust was misplaced—and you betray yourself—and you disgrace me, who taught you so poorly!"

Domaris sprang to her feet, raising protesting hands, but at Rajasta's imperative gesture she stilled the words rising in her throat, and listened with bent head.

"Do you think you are alone in grieving, Domaris? Do you not know that Micon was more than friend, more than brother to me? I am lonely since I can no longer walk at his side. But I cannot cease to live because one I loved has gone beyond my ability to follow!" He added, more gently, "Deoris, too, grieves for Micon—and she has not even the memory of his love to comfort her."

The woman's head drooped, and she began to weep, stormily, frantically; and Rajasta, his austere face kind again, gathered her in his arms and held her close until the crisis of desolate sobbing worked itself out, leaving Domaris exhausted, but alive.

"Thank you, Rajasta," she whispered, with a smile that almost made the man weep too. "I—I will be good."

II

Restlessly, Domaris paced the floor of her apartments. The weary hours and days that had worn away had only brought the unavoidable nearer, and now the moment of decision was upon her. Decision? No, the decision had been made. Only the time of action had come, when she must grant the fulfillment of her pledged word. What did it matter that her promise to Arvath had been given when she was wholly ignorant of what it entailed?

With a tight smile, she remembered words spoken many years ago: Yes, my Lords of the Council, I accept my duty to marry. As well Arvath as another—I like him somewhat. That had been long ago, before she had dreamed that love between man and woman was more than a romance of pretty words, before birth and death and loss had become personal to her. She had been, she reflected dryly, thirteen years old at the time.

Her face, thinner than it had been a month ago, now turned impassive, for she recognized the step at the door. She turned and greeted Arvath, and for a moment Arvath could only stand and stammer her name. He had not seen her since Micon's death, and the change in her appalled him. Domaris was beautiful—more beautiful than ever—but her face was pale and her eyes remote, as if they had looked upon secret things. From a gay and laughing girl she had changed to a woman—a woman of marble? Or of ice? Or merely a stilled flame that burned behind the quiet eyes?