Marion Bradley - Ancestors of Avalon

Oh Source of Stars in splendor

Against the darkness showing,

Grant us restful slumber

This night, Thy blessing knowing.

How could such peace, such beauty, be destroyed?

Her bed was hung with gauze draperies and covered with linen so fine it felt like silk against the skin. No comfort that Ahtarrath could provide was denied her, but despite her prayer, Tiriki could not sleep. By the time Micail came to bed, it was midnight. She could feel him gazing down at her and tried to make her breathing slow and even. Just because she was wakeful was no reason he should be deprived of sleep as well. But the bond between them went beyond the senses of the flesh.

‘What is wrong, beloved?’ His voice was soft in the darkness.

She let out her breath in a long sigh. ‘I am afraid.’

‘But we have known ever since we were born that doom might come to Ahtarrath.’

‘Yes – at some time in the distant future. But Alyssa’s warning makes it immediate!’

‘Perhaps…perhaps…’ The bed creaked as he sat down and reached to caress her hair. ‘Still, you know how hard it is to know the timing of a prophecy.’

Tiriki sat up, facing him. ‘Do you truly believe that?’

‘Beloved…none of us can know what our knowing may change. All we can do is to use what powers we have to face the future when it comes.’ He sighed, and Tiriki thought she heard an echo of thunder, although the night was cloudless.

‘Ah, yes, your powers,’ she whispered bitterly, for what use were they now? ‘You can invoke the wind and the lightning, but what of the earth beneath? And how will that be passed on, if all else falls? Reio-ta has only a daughter –and I – I am unable to bear you a child!’

Sensing her tears, he clasped her closer to him. ‘You have not done so – but we are still young!’

Tiriki let her head rest against his shoulder and relaxed into the strength of his arms, drawing in the faint spicy scent of his body mixed with the oils of his own bath.

‘Two babes have I laid upon the funeral pyre,’ she whispered, ‘and three more I lost before they could be born. The priestesses of Caratra have no more help for me, Micail.’ She felt her hot tears welling up as his arms tightened around her. ‘Our mothers were sisters – perhaps we are too close kin. You must take another wife, my beloved, one who can give you a child.’

She felt him shake his head in the darkness.

‘The law of Ahtarrath allows it,’ she whispered.

‘And the law of love?’ he asked. He grasped her shoulders, looking down at her. She felt, rather than saw, the intensity in his gaze. ‘To beget a son worthy to bear my powers, I must give not only my seed but my soul. Truly, beloved, I do not think I would even be – capable – with a woman who was not my match in spirit as well as in body. We were destined for each other, Tiriki, and there can never be anyone for me but you.’

She reached up to trace the strong lines of his cheek and brow. ‘But your line will end!’

He bent his head to kiss away her tears. ‘If Ahtarrath itself must cease to be, does it matter so greatly if the magic of its princes is lost as well? It is the wisdom of Atlantis we must preserve, not its powers.’

‘Osinarmen…do you know how much I love you?’ She lay back with a sigh as his hands began to move along her body, each touch awakening a sensation to which her body had learned to respond as the spiritual exercises of the Temple had trained her soul.

‘Eilantha…Eilantha!’ he answered and closed his arms around her.

At that summons, spirit and body opened together, overwhelmed and transfigured in the ultimate union.

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