Marion Zimmer Bradley's Ancestors of Avalon (7 page)

I think you need the rest more than I do, boy,
thought Chedan, but he knew better than to show his pity.

The rooms allotted to the mage were spacious and pleasant, with long windows to admit a cooling breeze from the sea. He sensed that Micail would have liked to linger, but Chedan pretended exhaustion and was soon left alone.

As the sound of footsteps receded, the mage unstrapped his bag and rummaged within it for a pair of brown boots and a dull-colored robe such as any traveler might wear. Donning them, he briskly descended to the street, taking care to remain unnoticed, and set off into the murky twilight with such calm self-assurance that any who saw him pass would have thought he was a lifelong denizen of the tangled alleys and byways of the Temple precincts.

In fact, Chedan had not visited Ahtarra for many years, but the roads had changed little. Every other step he took was dogged by echoes of lost youth, lost love, lost lives . . . Chedan paused alongside the vine-draped northern wall of the new Temple. Hoping he was in the right place, he swept aside a handful of vines and found a side door. It opened easily enough. It was more difficult to close it again.

Inside it was dark, save for a faintly glowing line of stones in the floor that delineated the way through a narrow service corridor lined with unmarked doorways. Chedan was able to move along the path quickly, until he suddenly came to the low stone archway at its end.

I am getting too old for such shortcuts,
the mage thought ruefully as he rubbed his head.
I might have gotten there faster by the front door.

Beyond the archway was a cramped, vaulted chamber, lit by the glowing steps of a spiral stair. Chedan carefully ascended two flights and emerged through another arch to reach the common reading room, a broad pyramidal room almost at the top of the building. Designed to catch the maximum daylight, it was now almost entirely in shadow. Only a few reading lamps burned here and there.

Beneath one such glow, the Vested Guardian Ardral sat alone at a broad table, examining the contents of a wooden chest. Moving closer, Chedan could hardly see the tabletop for the clutter that covered it: tattered scrolls, fragments of inscribed stone tablets, and what looked like strings of colorful beads.

Ardral’s attention was bent upon the prize of the collection, a curious sort of long, narrow book made of bamboo strips sewn together with silken threads.

“I didn’t know you had the
Vimana Codex
here,” Chedan commented, but Ardral ignored the attempt at polite interruption.

With a grimace, the mage appropriated a small bench nearby and dragged it noisily to a spot beside Ardral. “I can wait,” he announced.

Ardral looked up, with an outright grin. “Chedan,” he said softly, “I really was not expecting you until—”

“I know.” Chedan looked away. “I suppose I should have waited, but I’ve just come from the council meeting.”

“My condolences,” Ardral interjected. “I hope I succeeded in providing everyone with whatever information they needed.”

“I thought I saw evidence of your work,” Chedan put in.

“But I simply could not face another rehearsal of the inevitable platitudes.”

“Yes, there was a lot of that. They’re afraid,” said Chedan.

Ardral rolled his eyes. “Afraid they might remember why they still aren’t ready? This has been coming for a long time, nephew. And it’s just as Rajasta predicted—even if he was a little wrong about the date. With the best will in the world, in the Temple as on the farmstead, most people simply cannot go on year after year, looking for a way out of an impossible situation that fails to develop at the expected time! The urge to resume the routine of life—” Ardral broke off. “Well, there, you see, even I do it. Speaking of which, I have something put aside that you used to enjoy very much. Perhaps we could go solve the world’s problems in private, eh?”

“I—” Chedan blinked, then looked about the gloomy chamber. For a moment, seeing his uncle, he felt very young again. “Yes,” he said, with a chuckle, and then a real smile. “Thank you, Uncle.”

“That’s the spirit,” Ardral approved, and standing up, he proceeded to put the strange book into the wooden chest. “Just because eternity is trampling our toes, doesn’t mean we can’t live a little before—” Locking the chest, he gave Chedan a wink. “We do whatever dance comes next.”

During Chedan’s last visit, Ardral had occupied a rather decrepit dormitory, some little distance from the temple. Now, as curator of the library, he had a spacious room within its very walls.

A fire blazed up in the hearth as they entered, or perhaps it had already been burning. Chedan glanced at the sparse but tasteful furnishings, while Ardral brought out two filigreed silver cups, and opened a black and yellow jar of honey wine.

“Teli’ir?”
the mage exclaimed.

Ardral nodded. “I daresay there are no more than a dozen bottles in existence.”

“You honor me, Uncle. But I fear the occasion will not be worthy of it.” With a sigh, Chedan settled upon a cushioned couch.

In his uncle’s company, drinking teli’ir, it was almost as if the Bright Empire still ruled both horizons. Time had hardly passed at all. He was no longer the learned Chedan Arados, the great Initiate of Initiates, the one who was expected to set forth answers, solutions, hope. He could be himself.

Although the two had not been particularly close before the fall of the Ancient Land, Chedan had known Ardral all his life—indeed, years before he became an acolyte, his uncle had briefly been his tutor. Many years had passed since then, yet Ardral seemed no older. There were, no doubt, new lines and creases in the mobile, expressive face, and the shock of brown hair had faded and thinned . . . If Chedan looked closely, he could find such marks of age, but these slight details did not change his inner identity, which had somehow remained exactly the same.

“It
is
good to see you, Uncle,” he said.

Ardral grinned and refilled their cups. “I am glad you got here,” he answered. “The stars have not been reassuring for travelers.”

“No,” Chedan agreed, “and the weather is little better, though Tjalan tells me not to worry. But since you raised the subject, let me ask you—
your
head is always clear—”

“For another moment only,” Ardral joked, and quickly sipped more wine.

“Hah!” Chedan scoffed. “You know what I mean. You have never been one who is easily misled by presumptions or legends. You see only what is actually before you, unlike some—but never mind that.

“Once, years ago,” Chedan persisted, “you spoke to me of Rajasta’s
other
prophecies, and your own reasons for believing them. Have those reasons changed? . . .
Have they?
” he repeated, leaning closer to his uncle. “No one living knows Rajasta’s works better than you.”

“I suppose,” said Ardral distantly, as he ate a bit of cheese.

Undeterred, Chedan continued, “Everyone else has focused on the tragic elements of the prophecy. The destruction of Atlantis, the inevitable loss of life, the slim chance of survival. But you if anyone understands the larger scale of the prophecy—what was, and what is, and—”

“You are going to be a pest about this, aren’t you?” Ardral growled, without his usual smile. “All right.
Just this once,
I will answer the question you cannot bring yourself to ask. And then we will put the matter aside, for this night at least!”

“As you will, Uncle,” said Chedan, as meekly as a child.

With a sigh, Ardral ran his fingers through his hair, further disarranging it. “The short answer is yes. It is as Rajasta feared. The inevitable is happening, and worse, it occurs under just the sort of conditions that give mediocre horologers fits. Bah. They’re so easily distracted from the many positive influences—it’s as if they
want
to think the worst. But yes, yes, we can’t deny it, Adsar the Warrior Star has definitely changed its course toward the Ram’s Horn. And this is precisely the alignment the ancient texts call the War of the Gods. But the ancients plainly do
not
say that such a configuration will mean anything to the
mortal
world! The usual human vanity. So predictable.”

For some moments there was silence, as Ardral once more refilled his cup and Chedan tried to think of something to say.

“You see?” said Ardral, rather gently. “It does no good to think on such things. We only see the hem of the garment, as they say. So let it go. Things are going to be hectic enough in the next few days. There won’t be a lot of time for sitting quietly and doing nothing. And yet”—he raised his cup, mock-solemn—“in times like these—”

Laughing in spite of his dark thoughts, Chedan joined him in the old refrain,
“There’s nothing like nothing to settle the mind!”

Micail looked down at the confusion of items piled upon his couch and shook his head. It seemed a sad little assortment in the early morning light.
Three parts need to one part nostalgia?

Every ship, of course, would be provisioned with practical items such as bedding and seeds and medicines. Meanwhile, the acolytes and a few trusted chelas had been given the task of packing scrolls and regalia, using lists the Temple had prepared long ago. But those items, really, were all for public use. It was left to each passenger to choose as many personal belongings as would fit into a sack to go with him or her across the sea.

He had done this once before, when he was twelve, leaving the Ancient Land where he had been born to come to this island that was his heritage. Then he had left his boyhood behind.

Well, I will no longer need to lead processions up the Star Mountain.
For a moment longer, he examined the ceremonial mantle, beautifully embroidered with a web of spirals and comets . . . With the merest twinge of regret, he cast it aside and began to fold a pair of plain linen tunics. The only mantle of office he packed was one woven of white silk, so fine that it was luminous, and the blue mantle that went with it. With the ornaments of his priesthood, it would suffice for ritual work.
And without a country I will no longer be a prince.
Would that be a relief, he wondered, or would he miss the respect that his title brought him?

The symbol is nothing,
he reminded himself;
the reality is everything.
A true adept should be able to carry on without any regalia.
“The most important tool of the mage is here,”
old Rajasta used to say, tapping his brow with a smile. For a moment Micail felt as if he were back in the House of the Twelve in the Ancient Land.
I miss Rajasta sorely,
thought Micail,
but I am glad he did not live to see this day.

His gaze drifted to the miniature feather tree in its decorous pot on the windowsill, pale green foliage gleaming in the morning sun. It had been a gift from his mother, Domaris, not long after he had arrived on Ahtarrath, and since then he had watered it, pruned it, cared for it. . . . As he picked it up he heard Tiriki’s light step in the hall.

“My darling, are you really planning to take that little tree?”

“I . . . don’t know.” Micail returned the pot to the window and turned to Tiriki with a smile. “It seems a pity to abandon it after I have watched over it for so long.”

“It will not survive in your sack,” she observed, coming into his arms.

“That’s so, but there might be room for it somewhere. If deciding whether to bring a little tree is my hardest choice . . .” The words died in his throat.

Tiriki raised her head, her eyes seeking his and following his gaze to the window. The delicate leaflets of the little tree trembled, quivering, though there was no wind.

Sensed, rather than heard, the subsonic groaning below and all around them became a vibration felt in the soles of their feet, more powerful by far than the tremor they had felt the day before.

Not again!
Micail thought, pleading,
Not yet, not now . . .

From the mountain’s summit, a trail of smoke rose to stain the pale sky.

The floor rolled. He grabbed Tiriki and pulled her toward the door. Braced beneath its frame, they would have some protection if the ceiling fell. Their eyes locked again, and without need of words, they synchronized their breathing, moving into the focused detachment of trance. Each breath took them deeper. Linked, they were both more aware of the unraveling stresses within the earth, and less vulnerable to them.

“Powers of Earth be still!” he cried, drawing on the full authority of his heritage. “I, Son of Ahtarrath, Royal Hunter, Heir-to-the-Word-of-Thunder, command you! Be at peace!”

From the empty sky came thunder, echoed by a rumble that sounded far away. Tiriki and Micail could hear the tumult and outcry in the palace and the sounds of things crashing and breaking everywhere.