Marion Bradley - The Fall Of Atlantis

Carried away by her emotion, Domaris went much further into the ritual than she had realized, far further than she had intended—and at last an invisible Hand signed them both with an ancient seal. Full Initiates of the most ancient and holy of all the rites in the Temple or in the world, they were protected by and sealed to the Mother—not Caratra, but the Greater Mother, the Dark Mother behind all men and all rites and all created things. The faint flickerings deepened, swelled, became great wings of flame which lapped out to surround them with radiance.

The two women sank to their knees, then lay prostrate, side by side. Deoris felt her sister's child move against her body, and the faint, dreamlike stirring of her own unborn child, and in a flutter of insensate, magical prescience, she guessed some deeper involvement beyond this life and beyond this time, a ripple moving out into the turbulent sea which must involve more than these two ... and the effulgent glory about them became a voice; not a voice that they could hear, but something more direct, something they felt with every nerve, every atom of their bodies.

"Thou art mine, then, from age to age, while Time endures ... while Life brings forth Life. Sisters, and more than sisters ... women, and more than women ... know this, together, by the Sign I give you... ."

III

The fire had burned out, and the room was very dark and still. Deoris, recovering a little, raised herself and looked at Domaris, and saw that a curious radiance still shone from the swollen breasts and burdened body. Awe and reverence dawned in her anew and she bent her head, turning her eyes on herself—and yes, there too, softly glowing, the Sign of the Goddess... .

She got to her knees and remained there, silent, absorbed in prayer and wonder. The visible glow soon was gone; indeed, Deoris could not be certain that she had ever seen it. Perhaps, her consciousness exalted and steeped in ritual, she had merely caught a glimpse of some normally invisible reality beyond her newness and her present self.

The night was waning when Domaris stirred at last, coming slowly back to consciousness from the trance of ecstasy, dragging herself upright with a little moan of pain. Labor was close on her, she knew it—knew also that she had brought it closer by what she had done. Not even Deoris knew so well the effects of ceremonial magic upon the complex nervous currents of a woman's body. Lingering awe and reverence helped her ignore the warning pains as Deoris's arms helped her upright—but for an instant Domaris pressed her forehead against her sister's shoulder, weak and not caring if it showed.

"May my son never hurt anyone else," she whispered, "as he hurts me... ."

"He'll never again have the opportunity," Deoris said, but her lightness was false. She was acutely conscious that she had been careless and added to her sister's pain; knew that words of contrition could not help. Her abnormal sensitivity to Domaris was almost physical, and she helped her sister with a comprehending tenderness in her young hands.

There was no reproach in Domaris's weary glance as she closed her hand around her sister's wrist. "Don't cry, kitten." Once seated on the divan, she stared into the dead embers of the brazier for several minutes before saying, quietly, "Deoris, later you shall know what I have done—and why. Are you afraid now?"

"Only—a little—for you." Again, it was not entirely a true statement, for Domaris's words warned Deoris that there was more to come. Domaris was bound to action by some rigid code of her own, and nothing Deoris could say or do would alter that; Domaris was in quiet, deadly earnest.

"I must leave you now, Deoris. Stay here until I return—promise me! You will do that for me, my little sister?" She drew Deoris to her with an almost savage possessiveness, held her and kissed her fiercely. "More than my sister, now! Be at peace," she said, and went from the room, moving swiftly despite her heaviness.

Deoris knelt, immobile, watching the closed door. She knew better than Domaris imagined what was encompassed by the rite into which she had been admitted; she had heard of it, guessed at its power—but had never dared dream that one day she herself might be a part of it!

Can this, she asked herself, be what gave Maleina entry where none could deny her? What permitted Karahama—a saji, one of the no-people—to serve the Temple of Caratra? A power that redeems the damned?

Knowing the answer, Deoris was no longer afraid. The radiance was gone, but the comfort remained, and she fell asleep there, kneeling, her head in her arms.

IV

Outside, clutched again with the warning fingers of her imminent travail, Domaris leaned against the wall. The fit passed quickly, and she straightened, to hurry along the corridor, silent and unobserved. Yet again she was forced to halt, bending double to the relentless pain that clawed at her loins; moaning softly, she waited for the spasm to pass. It took her some time to reach the seldom-used passage that gave on a hidden doorway.

She paused, forcing her breath to come evenly. She was about to violate an ancient sanctuary—to risk defilement beyond death. Every tenet of the hereditary priesthood of which she was product and participant screamed at her to turn back.

The legend of the Sleeping God was a thing of horror. Long ago—so ran the story—the Dark One had been chained and prisoned, until the day he should waken and ravage time and space alike with unending darkness and devastation, unto the total destruction of all that was or could ever be... .

Domaris knew better. It was power that had been sealed there, though—and she suspected that the power had been invoked and unleashed, and this made her afraid as she had never dreamed of being afraid; frightened for herself and the child she carried, for Deoris and the child conceived in that dark shrine, and for her people and everything that they stood for... .

She set her teeth, and sweat ran cold from her armpits. "I must!" she whispered aloud; and, giving herself no more time to think, she opened the door and slipped through, shutting it quickly behind her.

She stood at the top of an immense stairwell leading down ... and down ... and down, grey steps going down between grey walls in a grey haze beneath her, to which there seemed no end. She set her foot on the first step; holding to the rail, she began the journey ... down.

It was slow, chill creeping. Her heaviness dragged at her. Pain twisted her at intervals. The thud of her sandalled feet jerked at her burdened belly with wrenching pulls. She moaned aloud at each brief torture—but went on, step down, thud, step down, thud, in senseless, dull repetition. She tried to count the steps, in an effort to prevent her mind from dredging up all the half-forgotten, awful stories she had heard of this place, to keep herself from wondering if she did, indeed, know better than to believe old fairy-tales. She gave it up after the hundred and eighty-first step.

Now she was no longer holding the rail, but reeling and scraping against the wall; again pain seized her, doubled and twisted her, forcing her to her knees. The greyness was shot through with crimson as she straightened, bewildered and enraged, almost forgetting what grim purpose had brought her to this immemorial mausoleum... .

She caught at the rail with both hands, fighting for balance as her face twisted terribly and she sobbed aloud, hating the sanity that drove her on and down.

"Oh Gods! No, no, take me instead!" she whispered, and clung there desperately for a moment; then, her face impassive again, holding herself grimly upright, she let the desperate need to do what must be done carry her down, into the pallid greyness.

I