Marion Bradley - The Fall Of Atlantis

The ancient master raised one hand, and breathed a single sentence; and the softness of his voice stayed with Domaris until the moment of her death. "All this I know, and more," he said. Raising Reio-ta, he drew him close and kissed the young Priest upon the forehead. "It is karma. Set your heart free, my son."

Reio-ta struggled to steady his voice. "M-Master!"

Now Domaris also would have knelt for Rathor's blessing, but the ancient prevented her. Deliberately, the master bent and touched his lips to the hem of her robe. Domaris gasped and quickly raised the old man to his feet. Lifting his hand, Rathor made a strange Sign upon her forehead—the same Sign Domaris had yielded to Micon at their first meeting. The ancient smiled, a smile of infinite benediction ... then stepped back and re-seated himself upon his bench.

Awkwardly, Reio-ta took her two hands in his own. "My Lady, you must not cry," he pleaded, and led her away.

I

With the passing of time, Domaris grew somehow accustomed to Ahtarrath. Micon had lived here, had loved this land, and she comforted herself with such thoughts; yet homesickness burned in her and would not be stilled.

She loved the great grey buildings, massive and imposing, very different from the low, white-gleaming structures in the Ancient Land, but equally impressive in their own fashion; she grew to accept the terraced gardens that sloped down everywhere to the shining lakes, the interlacing canopies of trees taller than she had ever seen—but she missed the fountains and the enclosed courts and pools, and it was many years before she could accustom herself to the many-storied buildings, or climb stairs without the sense that she violated a sacred secret meant for use in temples alone.

Domaris had her dwelling on the top floor of the building which housed the unmarried Priestesses; all the rooms which faced the sea had been set aside for Domaris and her attendants—and for one other from whom she was parted but seldom, and never for long.

She was instantly respected and soon loved by everyone in the New Temple, this tall quiet woman with the white streak in her blazing hair; they accepted her always as one of themselves, but with reserve and honor accorded to one who is a little strange, a little mysterious. Ready always to help or heal, quick of decision and slow of anger, and always with the blond and sharp-featured little girl toddling at her heels—they loved Domaris, but some strangeness and mystery kept them at a little distance; they seemed to know instinctively that here was a woman going through the motions of living without any real interest in what she was doing.

Only once did Dirgat, Arch-priest of the Temple—a tall and saintly patriarch who reminded Domaris slightly of Ragamon the elder—come to remonstrate with her on her apparent lack of interest in her duties.

She bowed her head in admission that the rebuke was just. "Tell me wherein I have failed, my father, and I will seek to correct it."

"You have neglected no iota of your duty, daughter," the Arch-priest told her gently. "Indeed, you are more than usually conscientious. You fail us not—but you fail yourself, my child."

Domaris sighed, but did not protest, and Dirgat, who had daughters of his own, laid his hand over her thin one.

"My child," he said at last, "forgive me that I call you so, but I am of an age to be your grandsire, and I—I like you. Is it beyond your power to find some happiness here? What troubles you, daughter? Open your heart. Have we failed to give you welcome?"

Domaris raised her eyes, and the tearless grief in them made the old Arch-priest cough in embarrassment. "Forgive me, my father." she said. "I sorrow for my homeland—and for my child—my children."

"Have you other children, then? If your little daughter could accompany you, why could not they?"

"Tiriki is not my daughter," Domaris explained quietly, "but my sister's child. She was daughter to a man condemned and executed for sorcery—and they would have slain the innocent child as well. I brought her beyond harm's reach. But my own children ..." She paused a moment, to be sure that her voice was steady before she spoke. "My oldest son I was forbidden to bring with me, since he must be reared by one—worthy—of his father's trust; and I am exiled." She sighed. Her exile had been voluntary, in part, a penance self-imposed; but the knowledge that she had sentenced herself made it no easier to bear. Her voice trembled involuntarily as she concluded bleakly, "Two other children died at birth."

Dirgat's clasp tightened very gently on her fingers. "No man can tell how the lot of the Gods will fall. It may be that you will see your son again." After a moment he asked, "Would it comfort you to work among children—or would it add to your sorrow?"

Domaris paused, to consider. "I think—it would comfort me," she said, after a little.

The Arch-priest smiled. "Then some of your other duties shall be lightened, for a time at least, and you shall have charge of the House of Children."

Looking at Dirgat, Domaris felt she could weep at the efforts of this good and wise man to make her happy. "You are very kind, father."

"Oh, it is a small thing," he murmured, embarrassed. "Is there any other care I can lighten?"

Domaris lowered her eyes. "No, my father. None." Even to her own attendants, Domaris would not mention what she had known for a long time; that she was ill, and in all probability would never be better. It had begun with the birth of Arvath's child, and the clumsy and cruel treatment she had received—no, cruel it had been, but not clumsy. The brutality had been far from unintentional.

At the time, she had accepted it all, uncaring whether she lived or died. She had only hoped they would not kill her outright, that her child might live ... But that had not been their idea of punishment. Rather it was Domaris who should live and suffer! And suffer she had—with memories that haunted her waking and sleeping, and pain that had never wholly left her. Now slowly and insidiously, it was enlarging its domain, stealing through her body—and she suspected it was neither a quick nor an easy death that awaited her.

She turned back her face, serene and composed again, to the Arch-priest, as they heard tiny feet—and Tiriki scampered into the room, her silky fair hair all aflutter about the elfin face, her small tunic torn, one pink foot sandalled and the other bare, whose rapid uneven steps bore her swiftly to Domaris. The woman caught the child up and pressed her to her heart; then set Tiriki in her lap, though the little girl at once wriggled away again.

"Tiriki," mused the old Arch-priest. "A pretty name. Of your homeland?"

Domaris nodded ... On the third day of the voyage, when nothing remained in sight of the Ancient Land but the dimmest blue line of mountains, Domaris had stood at the stern of the ship, the baby folded in her arms as she remembered a night of poignant sweetness, when she had watched all night under summer stars, Micon's head pillowed on her knees. Although, at the time, she had hardly listened, it seemed now that she could hear with some strange inward ear the sound of two voices blended in a sweetness almost beyond the human: her sister's silvery soprano, interlaced and intermingled with Riveda's rich chanting baritone ... Bitter conflict had been in Domaris then, as she held in her goose-fleshed arms the drowsing child of the sister she loved beyond everything else and the only man she had ever hated—and then that curious trick of memory had brought back Riveda's rich warm voice and the brooding gentleness in his craggy face, that night in the star-field as Deoris slept on his knees.

He truly loved Deoris at least for a time, she had thought. He was not all guilty, nor we all blameless victims of his evil-doing. Micon, Rajasta, I myself—we are not blameless of Riveda's evil. It was our failure too.