Finally, Kerin prepared Damaru for their departure, explaining again what was to happen, how he must obey the Cariad and be prepared to go with her if she demanded it. He put his hands over his ears, not wanting to listen, then stamped round the room, shaking off Kerin’s attempts to calm him. The outburst left him sulky, but compliant.
CHAPTER THIRTY
That afternoon, Einon visited the Stonemasons’ Guild, leaving Gorran to watch for visitors at Ebrilla’s. There was little more to be gleaned about Anona’s disappearance there. The boy had been seeing her for a couple of seasons, but the other apprentices had been surprised when they eloped together. Einon had expected something like that. The trail was cold.
In truth he had gone out mainly because he did not want to sit alone with his fears in his room, without even the comfort of his papers. He had been surprised at the request to marry Sais and Kerin, though it made sense. Hopefully Sais would keep her in hand. He had been more surprised, and not a little put out, to have spent so much time and effort - not to mention paper and ink - and suffered temporary exile and assault, all in the cause of exploring the new numbers, only to have Sais casually flaunt his own knowledge of them.
None of which mattered as much as his concern at what Fychan might be saying to his questioners in the Tyr. Of course, the Escorai did not know that Einon had travelled with the boy, but those in the tender care of the enquirers were apt to give away information as a boatman might bail a leaky boat, throwing out whatever was needed to save his skin.
He considered not returning to Ebrilla’s - but where would he go, what would he do? The Tyr was his life, and Urien was his master.
Rhidian led them through streets thronged with people in party clothes, many of them masked, some dressed as animals or fools or monsters. They passed dancers and acrobats, men juggling fire-sticks or walking on stilts. People broke off just long enough to make the circle at Damaru. Sais made himself return the gesture, empty though it was. They were sent on their way with drunken cheers, though they also got themselves a following of more sober celebrants carrying lanterns and torches, singing what sounded like a hymn.
The square was one huge party. Booze and food sellers were doing a roaring trade, and music came from several competing bands. Dancers whooped and spun and couples embraced in the twilight, laughing and groping. A pair of monitors carrying flaming torches came up to them, made the circle, then began to clear their path of any revellers partying too hard to notice the approach of a sacred procession. Sais glimpsed more torches at the maw of the Tyr’s entrance: presumably another skyfool, going in ahead of them.
The Tyr loomed over them, a great menacing mass. As he watched, the sun sent out a last flash of light from the beanstalk. He shivered for a moment and looked past Damaru to Kerin. Her lips were pressed into a thin line, her eyes bright. He felt nervous; she must be shit-scared. Sais again felt a warm flush of admiration for her; he doubted he’d be as calm in her situation. He’d like to have admitted his reason for not wanting her physically, but he’d encountered prejudice before, not least on the world where he grew up, and he was damn sure his sexuality was unacceptable here. He’d subjected the poor woman to enough culture shock already.
As they neared the Tyr the party-goers ebbed away and they were escorted by priests and soberly attired townsmen. Brightly dressed children threw cut flowers under their feet, filling the air with the smell of bruised petals. Monitors with more hi-tech torches stood to attention along the wide walkway cut into the mountain. They passed into the shadow of the Tyr to shouted blessings from the followers left outside. The cobbles of the street gave way to stone, and the walls closed in.
Damaru came to an abrupt halt. Kerin stopped at once, Sais a step further on. He looked over to see the boy whimpering and hugging himself, while Kerin comforted him. Rhidian, walking a few paces ahead, finally noticed and turned around.
Sais caught Damaru’s eye and said quietly, ‘It’s going to be all right. Your mother won’t let anything happen to you.’
Damaru stared at him reproachfully, but carried on, though he continued to eye the stone ceiling dubiously.
Rhidian whispered, ‘Did you not give him something to calm him?’
Kerin shook her head, as though daring the priest to tell her off.
The tunnels were machine-cut and lit by light-globes, though the doors set into the walls were wooden. They saw priests, monitors and uniformed servants. Some of the priests were on their way to join the party outside, and were already a little tipsy. Everyone stopped and circled their breasts as Damaru passed. Most of them stared at Kerin, and Sais had to resist the temptation to say, ‘What’s the matter, never seen a woman you haven’t broken before?’
They went deeper into the mountain, turning down smaller passages, emerging into larger ones, going up steps hewn into the rock. Sais tried to remember which way they’d come, but he didn’t reckon much to his chances of finding their way back out by themselves. Finally Rhidian led them to one of several similar doors in a long straight corridor. Their escort peeled off. Sais hoped they’d leave, but the two guards just marched a little way up the corridor, then stopped.
The priest turned to them. ‘You will be called to the testing chamber when the Cariad is ready to receive you. As your test is the last, this may be a while. I will have refreshments sent to you.’
Her voice strained, Kerin asked ‘Gwas, please, can you tell us anything about what will happen?’
Rhidian’s face assumed the affronted expression of a proud man forced to expose his ignorance. ‘I cannot. You are in the hands of the Mothers now. Your escort will accompany you to the Divine presence and guide you out. Did you wish me to return with you to your lodgings once the test is done, to provide spiritual guidance when your child has gone to his fate?’
‘We’ll be fine, thank you,’ said Sais stiffly.
Rhidian opened the door to reveal a small room with no other exits. It contained a padded bench and a table. After showing them in he circled his breast. ‘Mothers bless you all,’ he said. Then he closed the door. Sais waited a while, then tried the handle. As he had expected, they were locked in.
Damaru began to pace. Sais and Kerin sat down on the bench to get out of his way.
A few minutes later the door opened and a servant came in carrying a tray of cakes. Sais tensed, wondering if it was worth going for the man, but decided to wait and see what happened.
Damaru was distracted by the cakes, which smelled fresh-baked. Kerin picked one up and offered it to him, but changed her mind just as Sais shouted, ‘No!’ She snatched the cake out of Damaru’s grasp.
‘I think it’s drugged,’ said Sais.
Kerin nodded. ‘Aye, the same thought just occurred to me - they did not mention food until they knew I had not given my boy anything.’
Damaru didn’t understand why he couldn’t have a cake. He made a dive for the table, then, when Kerin blocked him, squealed in frustration. He sat down and began slapping the floor with his open hands. Kerin, who’d obviously dealt with this particular flavour of tantrum before, watched but didn’t approach.
Sais was tempted to suggest that maybe giving him just one drugged cake might not be such a bad idea.
After a while Damaru’s rage blew itself out. He gave a dramatic sulky lift of his shoulders, then lay down on his side, hugging his knees. Kerin went over and put a hand on his shoulder, but he shrugged her off.
The three of them sat in uneasy silence.
Sais tried to formulate a plan, but he didn’t have enough to go on yet. He needed to somehow lose the guards, and find the coms system, which would most likely be in the inner sanctum. For now, all he could do was watch, wait, and keep up the pretence.
As they walked through the Tyr, Kerin kept reminding herself that this place was designed to inspire reverence and wonder. She must not let herself be overawed; the priests were just people, and the cold, fireless lamps merely clever devices, not miracles.
Yet still she felt terror such as she had never known, not for her life, nor even for the life of her son or her new husband, but for her very soul. She had entered the holiest place in the land, prepared to believe it was founded on a lie and willing to disobey the authority it represented. She wanted nothing more than for her boy to assume his rightful place in Heaven, but she could not take the risk that Sais was right. She would not allow Damaru to be used as part of some great and terrible deception - but nor would she stand against the will of the Skymothers, unless she discovered for herself that the deception was real.
When Damaru’s petulance exploded into anger after she refused him the cake, she felt a different set of emotions: that strange heated mix of irritation, guilt and love for her ungrateful child, who took and never gave, who might not even love her as other children loved their mothers, but who relied on her utterly, and who she would not,
could not
, let come to harm. Soon he would be gone, and she would be free of the constant worry over him. And she would bear that alone, for even if Sais had loved her as she had hoped, the bond to her child was a unique one, and the hole his loss would tear in her heart would never heal.
Finally the door opened and the same pair of guards returned. Sais took that to mean there would only be these two for the duration of their stay. Good.
Kerin crouched down and took Damaru’s hands in hers. ‘Please,’ she whispered, ‘you have to come with us now. I promise I will not let anyone hurt you.’ He let her drag him to his feet. She kept hold of one of his hands and led him out. Sais caught Kerin’s free hand. From the look she gave him she was glad of the support.
Without Rhidian in front of him, he got a better look at the guards. They wore the standard monitor’s armour: midnight-blue hardened leather strips, more ceremonial than practical, but probably enough to stop a bronze knife. They had short blades on their belts and small, intricately crafted crossbows on straps across their backs.
Their escort led them to a tall double-door made of what looked like bronze banded with iron, although a closer look revealed that the bronze was a beaten sheet, no doubt covering ordinary wood. The guards pushed the doors open and indicated that the three of them should enter.
They walked into a huge circular cavern, lit on their side by light-globes around the wall that left the high ceiling and the far side in darkness. What Sais initially took to be a shadow on the floor turned out, on a second look, to be a chasm, a straight-cut pit four metres wide that stretched across the centre of the room from wall to wall, dividing the light and dark sides. The gap was bridged by a flat, rail-less bridge wide enough for two people to cross comfortably.
Their escort peeled off to stand on either side, about four or five steps away. He checked over his shoulder and saw another two guards closing the door. Four in all. Not good odds. As the guards by the door took their places in front of it, he noticed what looked like a primitive neural-interface helmet on a stand beside them.
The light level increased abruptly as a golden glow bathed the far side of the room, illuminating a dais in the centre of which, sitting on a high-backed throne, was a woman dressed in heavy black robes encrusted with sparkling white gems. She wore a high, horned headdress with a black veil hanging from it that obscured her face. She was flanked by two men in almost equally ornate metal-encrusted robes, one in orange, one in yellow. Sais barely registered them, for the Cariad’s presence dominated the room. Her eyes were invisible behind the veil but she would be looking at him, maybe picking up his mood, his surface thoughts, ready to dive deeper if she suspected he was anything other than the guardian of a candidate skyfool.
Sais tried to fill his head with memories of Dangwern, of Kerin’s hut, of mud and ordinariness and things entirely of this world. He hoped she would read his fear as religious awe.
The worst of it was that he might not even know she was reading him; Sidhe could be subtle as well as brutal. Hell, he had
thought
that, thought the word ‘Sidhe’.
Idiot, idiot, idiot.
Sweat prickled his skin and his heart caught in his chest.
The Cariad shifted slightly in her seat, sending dazzling reflections dancing round the room.
Sais braced himself for pain.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Despite Kerin’s resolve not to be taken in by the Tyr, the testing chamber still amazed her: you could fit Ebrilla’s entire house in here! Then, in a wondrous, instant transformation, the darkness was banished, and there, before her, was the Beloved Daughter of Heaven. And only two Escorai - those of Medelwyr and Mantoliawn. She knew of the missing Escori of Carunwyd, but what of the other two, who served Frythil and Turiach?
Even as she thought this, she dropped to her knees. Sais still stood, his face full of fear. ‘You must kneel,’ she whispered self-consciously.
He looked over to her, his expression relaxing a little, then fell forward onto his knees.
For a while there was silence, save the thudding of her heart. Then the Cariad spoke, her voice soft yet penetrating.
‘Arise, Chilwrau.’
Kerin climbed to her feet. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Sais stand. Damaru was staring at the Cariad, his head on one side.
‘Approach the bridge.’
Kerin led Damaru forward. Sais followed. When they got about half way the Cariad raised a hand. They stopped. She pointed to Sais, who flinched.
‘Who is this man?’ asked the Cariad.
Kerin answered, her voice quavering, ‘He is my husband, Divinity. He stands in the place of Fychan am Dangwern.’
‘So be it.’
Kerin could have sworn the Cariad sounded
upset
. Surely that could not be. And what need would a goddess have to ask such a question? Surely she would know?