Marie Brennan - Doppelganger

She lay in bed and stared at the ceiling, wishing she dared climb up on the temple roof. It had always been her instinct, when she wanted to think something through. Was it some spillover from Mirage’s Hunter training? No, because it went back further than that; she’d been climbing roofs since her double was a Temple Dancer.

She went up there because it brought her closer to the stars, the eyes of the Goddess.

And yet, was under the eyes of the Goddess where she really wanted to be right now, with the blood of the Cousins on her hands?

Miryo pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes and rolled over in her narrow, hard bed. No. Not the roof. Not with her memories of the last time she’d been on a roof.

Instead, she pulled on her robe and went into the hallway.

She was not the only person awake; the hermits under a vow of silence sometimes walked the corridors or the gardens as a form of moving meditation. She passed by two others, whether men or women she could not tell, making no acknowledgment of their presence, as they did not acknowledge her. They walked in their own minds with the Goddess.

Miryo envied them.

Low came and went, and still she walked. It had been at least an hour, as near as she could judge it, since any other priestesses had gone by. She was alone in the halls of the temple.

Then she turned a corner and found someone else there.

The hooded figure paced forward steadily, but, unlike the others, stopped instead of passing her. “I take it you can’t sleep.”

Miryo swallowed, trying to slow her pounding heart, and said, “Not really.”

Mirage tipped her head up enough to peer out from under the hood. “I figured as much. Nightmares?”

Miryo glanced away, unable to meet her double’s gaze.

“Of course nightmares.” Mirage held out her hand. “Come with me.”

Miryo looked at the hand for a long moment, pale and barely visible in the dim light of the hall. She wondered where her doppelganger wanted to lead her, and almost asked.

Instead she took Mirage’s hand, and followed her silently through the corridors of the temple.

Mirage felt Miryo tense the minute they passed through the archway into the pentagonal sanctuary of the temple. Moonlight spilled through the opening in the center of the roof, creating a silver island in the center of the floor. Along the walls, the five figures of the Goddess stood in shadow.

“I know you don’t want to be here,” Mirage said quietly, before Miryo could speak. “You’re not a devotee of the Warrior. You feel like having blood on your hands means you don’t belong in a place like this. But that’s exactly why you should come.” She turned and faced her double, saw the stricken expression on Miryo’s face. “We haven’t prayed since the ambush. I won’t say we need to; this isn’t about obligation. But I want to, and I think you do, too. Even though you’re telling yourself you don’t.”

Miryo stood motionless for several heartbeats, looking almost like a statue herself. Then she nodded, slowly, stiffly. “Yes.” She hesitated. “Thank you.”

They made a circuit of the sanctuary. Mirage bowed to each of the five Aspects, while Miryo touched her heart. The moonlight reflecting off the floor of the temple cast the faintest of glows onto each statue, so their faces were just discernible in the darkness.

Then Mirage spoke again. “Do you want to pray to any one of them, or all together?”

She could see Miryo thinking it over. “All five.”

Including the Warrior. Mirage nodded, and the two of them together went into the center of the sanctuary, where they knelt, pulled their hoods forward, and began to pray in silence.

Some time passed—at least a quarter of an hour, by the movement of moonlight across the floor—before Mirage became aware of eyes on her. She glanced up and found Miryo looking in her direction.

“What is it?” she asked.

“When you were a Temple Dancer,” Miryo said, “was this how you prayed?”

Her voice was hesitant, yet behind it lay a kind of unconscious conviction. As if she knew the answer before Mirage gave it.

“No,” Mirage said. “Sometimes, yes, and sometimes we went to regular services. But other times—for me, most of the time—we prayed as Dancers.”

“What does that mean?”

“We prayed with our bodies. Not with our voices or our minds. We Danced. Together, or alone, following the music in our hearts.”

The words were a poor description for it; usually only Avannans or other Dancers understood. But Miryo was nodding, and the unconscious conviction had grown visibly stronger. “Witches do something like that. Usually alone. We just sing. No words, ordinary or magical; whatever notes and sounds seem right. It’s not a spell. It’s prayer.”

Mirage cast a glance around the temple. The Aspects of the Goddess gazed back at her in the reflected moonlight. Even the breeze had died; there was no sound from the town outside.

She began to strip down to the Hunter uniform beneath her robe. “Do you want to take turns, or do this together?”

Miryo stood in the center of the room, the moonlight casting her shadow onto the stone, and closed her eyes.

Mirage stood nearby, eyes also closed.

For several heartbeats, the two of them stood, silent and motionless, and composed themselves.

Then they began.

Miryo was tentative at first, her voice hardly more than a whisper. She was not accustomed to an audience. But Mirage was not listening to her, not consciously. Each was in her own place, speaking to the Goddess in the truest way she knew.

Miryo sang with no particular plan. Her voice strengthened as she went along. Mirage, moving in a circle around her, also began hesitantly; her motions became more assured with every step she took.

Goddess , Miryo prayed through her wordless song, forgive me for what I have done. I meant Tsue harm; I wanted to do something that would get her out of my way. I succeeded, but at afar higher price than I had intended. Forgive me for that. And forgive me for the joy I felt when I held that power. I took pleasure in acting, if not in the act. Please, forgive me. I beg you .

Mirage, too, sent up a prayer, writing it in the air with her hands and her arms, the angle of her head. Help us, please. Don’t let us lose our momentum. For our own sakes, as well as those who will follow us, we cannot afford to let this go. Too much depends on it. Please, help us keep our course .

And, behind it all, from both of them: Give us the answer. Please. There is another way; show us the path to it .

Miryo’s singing took On a sense of direction. It was the progression she had seen in Haira: the Aspects of the Goddess, from youngest to oldest. Four of them she sang, from Maiden to Crone, while Mirage moved around her. The doppelganger made no sound, but her dancing provided a sharp counterpoint to the notes Miryo sang; the kicks and leaps, with their fierce, hard perfection, were sworn to the spirit of the Warrior.

Their separate prayers flowed into each other, creating a single plea, sound and movement, voice and flesh. The styles were different; Miryo sang the four, while Mirage danced the Warrior, but the rhythm that underlay them was the same.

And then they felt the change.

To Mirage, the air became filled with an electric energy. Her tired body took on a sudden drive that lifted her to greater heights, as it sometimes did in battles, in Dances, when words and thought dropped away and there was nothing but the movement. To Miryo, however, it was something more.

Without intending to, she lowered the guards she had placed so carefully on herself, and reached for power.

Panic tried to claw its way up her throat, but faded to nothingness before it could paralyze her. Miryo knew, distantly, that she should be afraid; this was not in her control, and she did not know what it would do. But the strange purity of mind that had overtaken her would not allow her to fear. She watched, with detached immediacy, as she sang onward, and the power took shape around them.