Marion Bradley - The Fall Of Atlantis

"I won't, I won't, I won't!" Deoris sobbed, over and over again. "Let me alone! I don't want to. I didn't want this! Go away, just go away! Leave me alone!"

II

It was late evening. The room was filled with drifting shadows, and the watery light deepened the vague flames of Domaris's hair, picked out the single streak of white all along its length. Her face was thin and drawn, her body narrowed, with an odd, gaunt limpness that was new. Deoris's face was a white oval of misery. They waited, together, in a hushed dread.

Domaris wore the blue robe and golden fillet of an Initiate of Caratra, and had bidden Deoris robe herself likewise. It was their only hope.

"Domaris," Deoris said faintly, "what is going to happen?"

"I do not know, dear." The older woman clasped her sister's hand tightly between her own thin blue-veined ones. "But they cannot harm you, Deoris. You are—we are, what we are! That they cannot change or gainsay."

But Domaris sighed, for she was not so certain as she wanted to seem. She had taken that course to protect Deoris, and beyond doubt it had served them in that—else Deoris would have shared Riveda's fate! But there was a sacrilege involved that went deep into the heart of the religion, for Deoris's child had been conceived in a hideous rite. Could any child so conceived ever be received into the Priest's Caste?

Although she did not, even now, regret the steps she had taken, Domaris knew she had been rash; and the consequences dismayed her. Her own child was dead, and through the tide of her deep grief, she knew it was only what she should have expected. She accepted her own guilt but she resolved, with a fierce and quiet determination, that Deoris's child should be safe. She had accepted responsibility for Deoris and for the unborn, and would not evade that responsibility by so much as a fraction.

And yet—to what night-haunted monster, working in Riveda, had Deoris been made mother? What hell-spawn awaited birth?

She took Deoris by the hand and they rose, standing together as their judges entered the room: the Vested Five, in their regalia of office; Karahama and attendant Priestesses; Rajasta and Cadamiri, their golden mantles and sacred blazonings making a brilliance in the dim room; and behind Karahama, a grey-shrouded, fleshless form stood, motionless, with long narrow hands folded across meager breasts. Beneath the grey folds a dim color burned blue, and across the blazing hair the starred fillet of sapphires proclaimed the Atlantean rites of Caratra in Maleina's corpse-like presence—and even the Vested Five gave deference to the aged Priestess and Adept.

There was sorrow in Rajasta's eyes, and Domaris thought she detected a glint of sympathy in the impassive face of the woman Adept, but the other faces were stern and expressionless; Karahama's even held a faintly perceptible triumph. Domaris had long regretted her moment of pique, those long years ago; she had made a formidable enemy. This is what Micon would have called karma ... Micon! She tried to hold to his name and image like a talisman, and failed. Would he have censured her actions? He had not acted to protect Reio-ta, even under torture!

Cadamiri's gaze was relentless, and Domaris shrank from it; from Cadamiri, at least, they could expect no mercy, only justice. The ruthless light of the fanatic dwelt in his eyes—something of the same fervor Domaris had sensed and feared in Riveda.

Briefly, Ragamon the Elder rehearsed the situation: Adsartha, once apprentice Priestess of Caratra, saji to the condemned and accursed Riveda, bore a child conceived in unspeakable sacrilege. Knowing this, the Guardian Isarma had taken it upon herself to bind the apostate Priestess Adsartha with herself in the ancient and holy Mystery of the Dark Mother, which put them both forever beyond man's justice ... "Is this true?" he demanded.

"In the main," Domaris said wearily. "There are a few minor distinctions—but you would not recognize them as important."

Rajasta met her eyes. "You may state the case in your own way, daughter, if you wish."

"Thank you." Domaris clasped and unclasped her hands. "Deoris was no saji. To that, I believe, Karahama will bear witness. Is it not true, my sister and more than my sister... ." Her use of the ritual phrase was deliberate, based on a wild guess that was hardly more than a random hope. "Is it not true that no maiden can be made saji after her body is mature?"

Karahama's face had gone white, and her eyes were sick with concealed rage that she, Karahama, should be forced into a position where she was bound by solemn oath to aid Domaris in all things! "That is true," Karahama acknowledged tautly. "Deoris was no saji, but SA#kti SidhA#na and, thus, holy even to the Priest of Light."

Domaris went on quietly, "I bound her to Caratra, not altogether to shield her from punishment nor to protect her from violence, but to guide her again toward the Light." Seeing Rajasta's eyes fixed on her in almost skeptical puzzlement, Domaris added, on impulse, "Deoris too is of the Light-born, as much as I am myself; and I—felt her child also deserved protection."

"You speak truth," Ragamon the Elder murmured, "yet can a child begotten in such foul blasphemy be so received by the Mother?"

Domaris faced him proudly. "The Rites of Caratra," she said with quiet emphasis, "are devoid of all distinctions. Her Priestesses may be of royal blood—of the race of slaves—or even the no-people." Her eyes dwelt for an instant upon Karahama. "Is that not so, my sister?"

"My sister, it is so," Karahama acknowledged, stifled, "even had Deoris been saji in truth." Under Maleina's eyes she had not dared keep silence, for Maleina had taken pity on Karahama too, years before; it had not been entirely coincidence which had brought Demira to Maleina's teaching. The three daughters of Talkannon looked at one another, and only Deoris lowered her eyes; Domaris and Karahama stood for almost a full minute, grey eyes meeting amber ones. There was no love in that gaze—but they were bound by a bond only slightly less close than that binding Domaris to Deoris.

Cadamiri broke the tense silence with blunt words: "Enough of this! Isarma is not guiltless, but she is not important now. The fate of Deoris has yet to be decided—but the child of the Dark Shrine must never be born!"

"What mean you?" Maleina asked sternly.

"Riveda begot this child in blasphemy and sacrilege. The child cannot be acknowledged, nor received. It must never be born!" Cadamiri's voice was loud, and as inflexible as his posture.

Deoris caught at her sister's hand convulsively, and Domaris said, faltering, "You cannot mean ..."

"Let us be realistic, my sister," said Cadamiri. "You know perfectly well what I mean. Karahama ..."

Mother Ysouda, shocked, burst out, "That is against our strictest law!"

But Karahama's voice followed, in honeyed and melodious, almost caressing tones. "Cadamiri is correct, my sisters. The law against abortion applies only to the Light-born, received and acknowledged under the Law. No letter of the Law prevents snuffing out the spawn of black magic. Deoris herself would be better freed from that burden." She spoke with great sweetness, but beneath her levelled thick brows she sent Deoris such a look of naked hatred that the girl flinched. Karahama had been her friend, her mentor—and now this! In the past weeks, Deoris had grown accustomed to cold glances and averted faces, superstitious avoidance and whispering silence ... even Elis looked at her with a hesitant embarrassment and found excuses to call Lissa away from her side ... yet the ferocious hatred in Karahama's eyes was something different, and smote Deoris anew.

And in a way she is right, Domaris thought in despair. How could any Priestess—or Priest—endure the thought of a child brought so unspeakably to incarnation?