Marion Bradley - The Fall Of Atlantis

Her eyes fluttered open. "Cadamiri?"

"Hush, my sister," he said in a rough, kindly voice. "Do not try to talk."

"I must—Deoris—the Crypt ..." Twisting spasmodically, she dragged her hands free of the Guardian's; but so exhausted was she that her eyes dropped shut again on the tears that welled from them, and she slept for a moment. Cadamiri's expression was soft with pity; he could understand, as not even Rajasta would have. This, from infancy, was every Temple woman's ultimate nightmare of obscene humiliation—that a man might approach a woman in labor. When Elis had been bullied into leaving her, her mind—sick and tormented—had receded into some depth of shame and hurt where no one could reach or follow her. Cadamiri's kindness was little better than the obscene brutality of the sorcerers.

When it was clear that there was no more that he could do, Cadamiri went to the inner door and quietly beckoned Arvath to approach. "Speak to her," he suggested gently. It was a desperate measure—if her husband could not reach her, probably no one could.

Arvath's face was pinched and pallid. He had waited, wracked by fear and trembling, most of the day, seeing no one save Mother Ysouda, who hovered about him for a time, weeping. From her he had learned for the first time of the dangers Domaris had deliberately faced; it had made him feel guilty and confused, but he forgot it all as he bent over his wife.

"Domaris—beloved—"

The familiar, loving voice brought Domaris back for a moment—but not to recognition. Agony and shame had loosed her hold on reason. Her eyes opened, the pupils so widely distended that they looked black and blind, and her bitten-bloody lips curved in the old, sweet smile.

"Micon!" she breathed. "Micon!" Her eyelids fluttered shut again and she slept, smiling.

Arvath leaped away with a curse. In that instant, the last remnant of his love died, and something cruel and terrible took its place.

Cadamiri, sensing some of this, caught restrainingly at his sleeve. "Peace, my brother," he implored. "The girl is delirious—she is not here at all."

"Observant, aren't you?" Arvath snarled. "Damn you, let me go!" Savagely, he shook off Cadamiri's hands and, with another frightful curse, went from the room.

Rajasta, still standing in the courtyard, unable to force himself to go, whirled around with instant alertness as Arvath reeled staggering out of the building.

"Arvath! Is Domaris ... ?"

"Domaris be damned forever," the young Priest said between his teeth, "and you too!" He tried to thrust his way past Rajasta, too, as he had Cadamiri; but the old man was strong, and determined.

"You are overwrought or drunken, my son!" said Rajasta sorrowfully. "Speak not so bitterly! Domaris has done a brave thing, and paid with her child's life—and her own may be demanded before this is over!"

"And glad she was," said Arvath, very low, "to be free of my child!"

"Arvath!" Rajasta's grip loosed on the younger Priest as shock whitened his face. "Arvath! She is your wife!"

With a furious laugh, he pulled free of Rajasta. "My wife? Never! Only harlot to that Atlantean bastard who has been held up all my life as a model for my virtue! Damn them both and you too! I swear—but that you are just a stupid old man ..." Arvath let his menacing fist fall to his side, turned, and in an uncontrollable spasm of retching, was violently sick on the pavement.

Rajasta sprang to him, murmuring, "My son!"

Arvath, fighting to master himself, thrust the Guardian away. "Always forgiving!" he shouted, "Ever compassionate!" He stumbled to his feet and shook his fist at Rajasta. "I spit on thee—on Domaris—and on the Temple!" he cried out in a breaking falsetto—and, elbowing Rajasta savagely aside, rushed away, into the gathering darkness.

II

Cadamiri turned to see a tall and emaciated form in a grey, shroud-like garment, standing a little distance from him. The door was still quivering in its frame from Arvath's departure; nothing had stirred.

Cadamiri's composure, for the second time that day, deserted him. "What—how did you get in here?" he demanded.

The grey figure raised a narrow hand to push aside the veil, revealing the haggard face and blazing eyes of the woman Adept Maleina. In her deep, vibrant voice she murmured, "I have come to aid you."

"You Grey-robe butchers have done enough already!" Cadamiri shouted. "Now leave this poor girl to die in peace!"

Maleina's eyes looked shrunken and sad then. "I have no right to resent that," she said. "But thou art Guardian, Cadamiri. Judge by what you know of good and of evil. I am no sorceress; I am Magician and Adept!" She stretched her empty, gaunt hand toward him, palm upward—and as Cadamiri stared, the words died in his throat; within her palm shone the sign he could not mistake, and Cadamiri bent in reverence.

Scornfully, Maleina gestured him to rise. "I have not forgotten that Deoris was punished because she aided one no priestess might dare to touch! I am—hardly a woman, now; but I have served Caratra, and my skill is not small. More, I hate Riveda! He, and worse, what he has done! Now stand aside."

Domaris lay as if life had already left her—but as Maleina's gaunt, bony hands moved on her body, a little voiceless cry escaped her exhausted lips. The woman Adept paid no more heed to Cadamiri, but murmured, musingly, "I like not what I must do." Her shoulders straightened, and she raised both hands high; her low, resonant voice shook the room.

"Isarma!"

Not for nothing were true names kept sacred and secret; the intonation and vibration of her Temple name penetrated even to Domaris's withdrawn senses, and she heard, though reluctantly.

"Who?" she whispered.

"I am a woman and thy sister," Maleina said, with gentle authority, calming her with a hand on the sensitive centre of the brow chakra. Abruptly she turned to Cadamiri.

"The soul lives in her again," she said. "Believe me, I do no more than I must, but now she will fight me—you must help me, even if it seems fearful to you."

Domaris, all restraint gone, roused up screaming, in the pure animal instinct for survival, as Maleina touched her; Maleina gestured, and Cadamiri flung his full weight to hold the struggling woman motionless. Then there was a convulsive cry from Domaris; Cadamiri felt her go limp and mercifully unconscious under his hands.

With an expression of horror, Maleina caught up a linen cloth and wrapped it around the terribly torn thing she held. Cadamiri shuddered; and Maleina turned to him a sombre gaze.

"Believe me, I did not kill," she said. "I only freed her of ..."

"Of certain death," Cadamiri said weakly. "I know. I would not have—dared."

"I learned that for a cause less worthy," said Maleina, and the old woman's eyes were wet as she looked down at the unconscious form of Domaris.

Gently she bent and straightened the younger woman's limbs, laid a fresh coverlet over her.

"She will live," said Maleina. "This—" she covered the body of the dead, mutilated child. "Say no word about who has done this."

Cadamiri shivered and said, "So be it."

Without moving, she was gone; and only a shaft of sunlight moved where the Adept had stood a moment before. Cadamiri clutched at the foot of the bed, afraid that for all his training he would fall in a faint. After a moment he steadied himself and made ready to bear the news to Rajasta; that Domaris was alive and that Arvath's child was dead.

I

They had allowed Demira to listen to the testimony of Deoris, wrung from her partially under hypnosis, partially under the knowledge that her sworn word could not be violated without karmic effect that would spread over centuries. Riveda, too, had answered all questions truthfully—and with contempt. The others had taken refuge in useless lies.