Gail Martin - The Sworn

“I don’t like them up there by themselves,” Gellyr murmured just loud enough for Jonmarc to hear.

“Agreed. Let’s hope it’s worth the risk.”

Jonmarc thought he had caught a glimpse of Kolin in the crowd, but the press of people was too heavy for him to be certain. It was nearly too crowded for him to be able to draw his sword without injuring a bystander. He flexed his fingers just above the pommel of his sword. I’d much rather start a fight than stand around waiting to get hit.

Berry moved with a gracefulness she rarely showed as her tomboy self. If Jencin could see her, Jonmarc knew the seneschal would be both proud of her bearing and astounded that the lessons that had seemed to go unheeded had actually sunk in. Beside her, Aidane was doing her best to scan the crowd, even as she carried the basket with the gifts Berry brought to present to each of the Aspects.

The Sacred Vessels greeted Berry, but did not bow. “Your Majesty,” said one of the robed figures. With their cowls raised, all of the Sacred Vessels looked alike. “Have you come to make your coronation gifts to the Lady?”

“I have.”

“She awaits. May the Sacred Lady, in all of Her faces, look on you and your reign with favor, and may your life and reign be prosperous.”

Berry inclined her head, slightly, in acceptance of the blessing. The Sacred Vessels stepped aside for Berry to approach the statues and their glowing braziers. Aidane followed her, carrying the ornate basket of offerings.

Berry bowed to the statue of the Lover first, and took a flagon of wine from the basket. “My Lady, Lover of your children, grant us peace and prosperity.” She poured out the wine onto the feet of the statue and she dropped a handful of rose petals into the brazier.

Then she moved to the statue of Athira, the Whore. “Athira, most generous in your favors, give increase to our crops and herds, and to our people. Make our children fat and our women fertile.” She withdrew a bunch of plump, ripe grapes and laid them at the statue’s feet and she sprinkled a handful of cardamom on the brazier. The sweet, spicy smell spread on the smoke, mingling with the rose scent.

Berry moved from statue to statue in turn, making her gifts and asking for blessing. Finally, she stood in front of the statue of Istra, the Dark Lady, patron of Dark Haven’s vayash moru and of outcasts everywhere. Against his will, Jonmarc felt himself drawn to look up at the face of the statue, and he shuddered. Amber eyed and wild, Istra was more beautiful than any of her statues. Once, when he lay close to death, he had seen that raven-haired beauty on the shores of the Gray Sea, the sea all souls must cross at the end of their days. He had bargained with Her, and She had claimed him as Her champion.

“Istra, patron of outcast souls and Those Who Walk the Night, protector of my champion, look on us with favor. You know the dangers we face. M’lady, I beg of you, make us wise to know the vipers among us.”

Jonmarc felt a shiver go down his spine. He realized he was holding his breath. There was power in the air, and even though he had no magic of his own, he could feel something. The energy made the skin on the back of his neck prickle in warning.

When Berry had made her offerings to each of the figures, she turned and moved to the center of the dais. Aidane stepped back, her eyes scanning the crowd. The eight Sacred Vessels clustered around Berry, and the queen knelt. Each of the Sacred Vessels moved closer to lay a hand on Berry’s head. They murmured together in a language Jonmarc did not recognize, and he dimly remembered hearing once that the acolytes of the Lady spoke in a tongue all their own.

Near the stage, drummers began a complicated rhythm, and flutes picked up a descant. It started slow, but increased in tempo, and the Sacred Vessels began to sway with the music, even as the crowd felt its rhythm.

The Sacred Vessels fell silent, and one of them moved away from Berry. The white-robed woman let her cowl fall back, and she shrugged out of her robe, letting it pool around her feet. She was a beautiful woman, with chestnut hair that covered her shoulders and spilled down to partly cover her breasts. Strands of red beads draped across her chest, all lengths, falling to her navel. She lifted up her arms and let her head fall back as she let the music take her.

“A prophecy for the queen. Plague will depart from Principality, but War will take its place. Blood will feed the crops of the next harvest. Blood and flesh will fatten the birds. Death and birth begin in blood.”

Still possessed of the spirit of prophecy, the Sacred Vessel began to dance, caught up completely in the music that was moving faster and faster and in the pounding drumbeats.

A second of the oracles stepped forward, and when her robes fell, blue beads, sacred to the Mother, covered her body in a cascade like sea water, with the torchlight glinting off the facets of hundreds of beads. “A prophecy for the queen. Alliances will be forged, and new life will replace the fallen. Night and day will become one.” She joined her sister oracle in the dance as yet another of the Sacred Vessels stepped to the front.

Bright green beads and feathers festooned the oracle’s nude body, like a short, fringed dress. She threw open her arms as if she would embrace the crowd, but her eyes were distant, possessed. “Hear the prophecy of the Childe. Water births and water kills. From the waters comes darkness. To the waters return the souls of warriors. The future is born of water and fire.”

As she joined the dance, the fourth oracle left her place by Berry. She wore a more revealing cascade of yellow beads around her neck, but bracelets of beads covered her from wrists to shoulders and belled anklets chimed as she moved. “A prophecy for the queen. Hear the vision of the Lover. Hearts break. Hearts bleed. Bury love and fear together. Reap a harvest of souls, and a hollowing of spirits. Weep for the lost ones, never to wake again. Kings will fall and crowns will rise, and the old ways will be forever changed.”

The crowd, drunken as it was, had stilled despite the music that played faster and faster. Some of them were sober enough to hear the warnings in the words of the Sacred Vessels, and as much of a hush as was possible for several thousand people fell over the throng as the fifth oracle moved to the front.

Orange beads, for Chenne the Warrior, covered the prophetess. She was of mixed blood, and Jonmarc guessed she had Eastmark heritage. “Soon my horses will ride your lands, and your blood will whet my steel. Hear me, Berwyn of Principality. In the rising and the setting of the sun lies your salvation. From across the sea comes death. Look to the course of the sun.”

The sixth oracle let her robes fall. She had short, chopped brown hair and white, sightless eyes. She was thin, too thin, like an animated corpse. Vayash moru looked far more healthy than she. Clear beads, the color of Nameless, the Formless One, did little to hide her nakedness or the bluish pallor of her skin. “I ride across your land with my Host, harvesting what belongs to me. Beware the Hollowing. My servants have heard another voice, someone who would be their master. The Night Ones wake. Dread their coming. Dread and blood come and what will remain when they have passed?”

The crowd was now nervously quiet. While the oracles danced across the stage, whirling in a frenetic motion that drove out reason and opened them to the passions of the divine, two more seers had yet to speak. Jonmarc felt a coldness in the pit of his stomach as the seventh seer revealed herself.

Beads black as night covered her, making her pale skin glow in the torchlight by comparison. Or perhaps, Jonmarc thought, the seer was vayash moru. The beads made the sound of rattling bones as she moved, and unlike those that adorned the other seers, these strands seemed to move on their own, followed by a blur of shadows that almost formed a misty covering for their wearer. “Hear the words of the Sinha, the Crone. My cauldron fills with blood and spirits. Shadows awaken from long slumber. Days grow short, and night remains. The battle is coming, between day and night. Dawn and sunset war with each other. In darkness lie both defeat and victory.”