Marion Bradley - The Fall Of Atlantis

Or would she? Riveda was versed in the mysteries, able to prevent conception if it pleased him. With a flash of horrified intuition, the thought came, to be at once rejected. Oh no, not from that night in the Crypt—the mad invocation—the girdle, even now concealed beneath my nightdress ...

With a desperate effort, she snapped shut her mind on the memory. It never happened, it was a dream ... except for the girdle. But if that's real—no. There must be some explanation ...

Then her mind caught up with the other thing Demira had said, seizing on it almost with relief. "You!"

Demira looked up plaintively at Deoris. "You'll believe me," she said pitifully. "You will not mock me?"

"Oh, no, Demira, no, of course not." Deoris looked down into the pixyish face that now laid itself confidingly on her shoulder. Demira, at least, had not changed much in these three years; she was still the same, strange, suffering, wild little girl who had excited first Deoris's distrust and fear, and later her pity and love. Demira was now fifteen, but she seemed essentially the same, and she looked much as she had at twelve: taller than Deoris but slight, fragile, with the peculiar, deceptive appearance of immaturity and wisdom intermingled.

Demira sat up and began to reckon on her fingers. "It was like an awful dream. It happened, oh, perhaps one change of the moon after you left us."

"Five months ago," Deoris prompted gently.

"One of the little children had told me I was wanted in a sound-chamber. I thought nothing of it. I had been working with one of Nadastor's chelas. But it was empty. I waited there and then—and then a priest came in, but he was—he was masked, and in black, with horns across his face! He didn't say anything, he only—caught at me, and—oh Deoris!" The child collapsed in bitter sobbing.

"Demira, no!"

Demira made an effort to stifle her tears, murmuring, "You do believe me—you will not mock me?"

Deoris rocked her back and forth like a baby. "No, no, darling, no," she soothed. She knew very well what Demira meant. Outside the Grey Temple, Demira and her like were scorned as harlots or worse; but Deoris, who had lived in the Grey Temple, knew that such as Demira were held in high honor and respect, for she and her kind were sacred, indispensable, under protection of the highest Adepts. The thought of a saji being raped by an unknown was unthinkable, fantastic ... Almost unbelieving, Deoris asked, "Have you no idea who he was?"

"No—oh, I should have told Riveda, I should have told, but I couldn't, I just couldn't! After the—the Black-robe went away, I—I just lay there, crying and crying, I couldn't stop myself, I—it was Riveda who heard me, he came and found me there. He was ... for once he was kind, he picked me up and held me, and—and scolded me until I stopped crying. He—he tried to make me tell him what had happened, but I—I was afraid he wouldn't believe me ..."

Deoris let Demira go, remaining as still as if she had been turned to a statue. Scraps of a half-heard conversation had returned to float through her mind; her intuition now turned them to knowledge, and almost automatically she whispered the invocation, "Mother Caratra! Guard her," for the first time in years.

It couldn't be, it simply was not possible, not thinkable ...

She sat motionless, afraid her face would betray her to the child.

At last Deoris said, frozenly, "But you have told Maleina, child? Surely you know she would protect you. I think she would kill with her own hands anyone who harmed you or caused you pain."

Demira shook her head mutely; only after several moments did she whisper, "I am afraid of Maleina. I came to you because—because of Domaris. She has influence with Rajasta ... When last the Black-robes came into our temple, there was much terror and death, and now, if they have returned—the Guardians should know of it. And Domaris is—is so kind, and beautiful—she might have pity, even on me—"

"I will tell Domaris when I can," Deoris promised, her lips stiff; but conflict tore at her. "Demira, you must not expect too much."

"Oh, you are good, Deoris! Deoris, how I love you!" Demira clung to the older girl, her eyes bright with tears. "And Deoris, if Riveda must know—will you tell him? He will allow you anything, but no one else dares approach him now, since you left us no one dares speak to him unless he undresses them, and even then . . . " Demira broke off. "He was kind, when he found me, but I was so afraid."

Deoris stroked the little girl's shoulder gently, and her own face grew stern. Her last shred of doubt vanished. Riveda heard her crying? In a sealed sound-chamber? That I'll believe taken the sun shines at midnight!

"Yes," said Deoris grimly, "I will talk to Riveda."

III

"She did not even guess, Deoris. I did not mean that you should know, either, but since you are so shrewd, yes, I admit it." Riveda's voice was as deep and harsh as winter surf; in the same icy bass he went on, "Should you seek to tell her, I—Deoris, much as you mean to me, I think I would kill you first!"

"Take heed lest you be the one killed," Deoris said coldly. "Suppose Maleina makes the same wise guess I did?"

"Maleina!" Riveda practically spat the woman Adept's name. "She did what she could to ruin the child—nevertheless, I am not a monster, Deoris. What Demira does not know will not torment her. It is—unfortunate that she knows I am her father; fool that I was to let it be guessed even in the Grey Temple. I will bear the responsibility; it is better that Demira know nothing more than she does now."

Sickened, Deoris cried out, "And this you will confess to me?"

Slowly, Riveda nodded. "I know now that Demira was begotten and reared for this one purpose alone. Otherwise, why should I have stretched out my hand to save her from squalling to death on the city wall? I knew not what I did, not then. But is it not miraculous, you see, how all things fall together to have meaning? The girl is worthless for anything else—she made Karahama hate me, just by being born." And for the first time Deoris sensed a weak spot in the Adept's icy armor, but he went on swiftly, "But now you see how it all makes a part of the great pattern? I did not know when she was born, but Karahama's blood is one with yours, and so is Demira's, that strain of the Priest's Line, sensitive—and so even this unregarded nothing shall serve some part in the Great work."

"Do you care for nothing else?" Deoris looked at Riveda as if he were a stranger; at this moment he seemed as alien as if he had come from far beyond the unknown seas. This talk of patterns, as if he had planned that Demira should be born for this ... was he mad, then? Always Deoris had believed that the strangeness of his talk hid some great and lofty purpose which she was too young and ignorant to understand. But this, this she did understand for the corrupt madness it was, and of this he spoke as if it were more of the same high purpose. Was it all madness and illusion then, had she been dragged into insanity and corruption under the belief that she was the chosen of the great Adept? Her mouth was trembling; she fought not to break down.

Riveda's mouth curved in a brutal smile. "Why, you little fool, I believe you're jealous!"

Mutely, Deoris shook her head. She did not trust herself to speak. She turned away, but Riveda caught her arm with a strong hand. "Are you going to tell Demira this?" he demanded.

"To what purpose?" Deoris asked coldly, "To make her sick, as I am? No, I will keep your secret. Now take your hands from me!"

His eyes widened briefly, and his hand dropped to his side. "Deoris," he said in a more persuasive voice, "you have always understood me before."

Tears gathered at her eyelids. "Understood you? No, never. Nor have you been like this before! This is—sorcery, distortion—black magic!"