Танит Ли - Anackire

Had she, Eraz, contained the Power of one such as Raldnor Rehdon’s son, had this room been filled by Lowlanders imbued by that Power, then, no doubt, they would not have been the victims. Yet the place where the hero had worked his magic—the earthquake, Koramvis’ fall—had been adjacent to the great Power-source of the hidden cave temple, known to the ancients of Eraz’s people, who had set there the colossal goddess statue. That charge, the vitality of Raldnor, combined—Ankabek was not a power-source, though the island lay over one of those lines of psychic power that ribbed the planet: The line that ran to Koramvis from the arcane kingdom of the Zor.

But no, she must not idle, musing on these occult mathematics. They had not the strength to stand against their enemies, either of body or psyche. That strength had been, and was to come.

As she raised her head, there was a terrible booming.

Women in the small crowd cried out. There was not one of them who did not know what the sound indicated. The Free Zakorians had reached the temple’s outer doors and had begun the process of breaking them in. Having some knowledge of Ankabek, they would have brought make-shift rams from their ships to do it.

Even so, the noise seemed far away.

Eraz began to speak.

“We are well defended,” she said. “The outer doors, when secured, are very hard to penetrate, though they will penetrate them. The Sanctum is enclosed, and it is unlikely any Zakorian may breach the stone’s mechanism, even by random accident.” She saw their faces, and understood she must not prolong their hope, which was groundless. “Yet,” she said, “they will also gain access to the precinct of the novitiates. Corridors descend there and run below the temple, connecting to stairs which lead between this chamber’s outer and inner walls. Here there are doorways only of metal, barred only by metal. Through such a doorway you saw me just now enter.” She waited a moment, her heart chilled at their faces, now. She said, “Others than they might abandon the central temple. The inner ways which lead to it are complex. They would not try them, might not even search for them. But these Free Zakorians are different. There is shame and death before them. They have, in turn, a madness to debase and to kill. By the desperation of this need, they will discover the way in to us. Hours may pass, but you will eventually hear them against these inner doors, which cannot forever keep them out.” Women wept. Children, catching fear, wept also. The beasts were troubled. There was anguish and horror. She must conclude. “We know the leniency of Free Zakoris. To their own kind they are merciless. For us they will have torture unspeakable. I shall describe none of it. Remember only what you know of them. They will leave none alive, but for many death will be slow. They will kill also your children in hideous ways, and your beasts. They will drink blood in the stolen wine. Then they will burn whatever is left.” She paused. She said, “The statue of Anackire they will hoist and drag and fling into the sea, though they will tear away her jewels and cut out her eyes, and rip away the curtain for loot. Such spoil will be vaunted in Zakoris-In-Thaddra. They will say they have slain one of Her lives.”

She waited then, once more, until, over the horrified weeping and moaning, the silence of despair came down like snow. And beyond the walls, all at once, she heard the outer doors give way. The sound was appalling. Even Eraz it appalled.

And even if she had not thought life stretched away beyond life for all of them, yet she could not have wished to live to hear that other splintering of the inner doors, which must come.

She looked out at them, and let the Power pass through her, and from her, and so into each of them.

“The soul never dies,” she said. “Death is not death. So the rituals of the goddess have taught us. Dying is only change. The flesh is left upon the ground. The spirit is born again out of the husk. And this She has taught us by her symbol and her image which is the snake, who, casting its skin, pours from the husk alive, that we may know we too shall live beyond a cast-off skin, alive and beautiful as the stars.”

She felt them now. Each mind a flame, held within the scope of hers. Their faces were empty of fear.

She motioned with one hand, and the curtain flew upward and the statue of the goddess was at her back, before them.

She let them gaze awhile at the goddess. From the trough below the serpents had gone away. They would be safe in their narrow vasty labyrinth, as no other thing at Ankabek.

Outside, with the crashing of the doors, there had come a muffled roar which still went on. Nothing else was distinguishable. It sounded elemental and subhuman.

Quietly, she signaled again, and a priest came to her, the great cup in his hands. She took it and one by one, dozen by dozen, the faces and the eyes came back to her.

She told them about the cup.

The drug was Thaddrian, once more universal. It brought an immobility, and outer hardening, turning men to stone as inwardly, without pain, they died. Those Vis warriors, standing guard forever in the tombs of kings, had perhaps partaken of that brew. Now it had been distilled and mixed. The death it brought was swift, though still painless. A death sweet as sleep, from one small sip at the great cup’s brim.

“If any will not,” she said to them, “say now. There is time for you to hide yourselves in the corridors below. The Zakorians have not yet reached them. It may be possible for a very few to find some cranny that is missed, and so escape. I do not promise it. I offer the choice.”

They murmured. They fell still. None of them moved toward the doors.

“Then,” she said, “if you consent, come closer, to the goddess. When you drink, give also to your animals. Fear nothing. We shall go all together, a flight of souls like a flight of arrows all from one bow.”

The Lowland priest drank first from the cup, as he had offered to do, to demonstrate their oneness, and that the drink was nothing to be afraid of in itself. Having drunk, he smiled at them, and gave the cup into another’s grasp. For a moment they watched him, his countenance—that of a young and handsome man—serene, contemplative, without distress; his eyes full of light.

The cup passed. Hands reached for it. They drank, the Lowlanders, the Vis, priest and priestess and villager. The children sipped. The little pet animals were given the cup, the cattle. None refused, as if all had comprehended. Their lips mingled at the brim with the sense of other lips, a kiss, which was also death’s kiss. The mixture had no taste. Not even like the taste of water.

The last to take the cup, a priestess, came back with it and held it toward Eraz.

A young girl, black-haired, she wept. There was only sufficient in the cup for one.

“Drink it,” said Eraz, “then touch my lips with yours. Yes, it is so strong. I don’t lie to you.”

So the girl drained the last morsel of the drug, and touched Eraz’s lips with hers.

Outside, the roar had ended. Now there began to be a volcanic grumbling from the depths below. They had found the under-corridors. They would soon be at the inner doors.

Within, the stillness was intent, yet soft as powder. Aware of each mind, Eraz was aware as each mind put out its light. In the hall of her brain, the little candles flickered, sighed, faded. Beside her the young Lowland priest was long dead. She could not move her head to look at him.

Sweet as sleep. They had trusted her, they had trusted what lay within themselves. Her sadness was over. Her heart was full of joy.

All the little lights were gone.

And Eraz sank into the moment and the century of oblivion beyond which there waited life.