[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
Rajasta said in a low tone, "It is beyond words lovely."
"I know." Micon's dark unquiet face held momentary torment. "I feel it."
Domaris, her pale robes gleaming silver as if with frost, seemed to drift toward them. "Come and sit with
us, Teachers of Wisdom," she invited, and drew Deoris closely against her.
"Gratefully," Rajasta answered, and led Micon after the tall and lovely shape.
Deoris abruptly freed herself from the arm that encircled her waist, and came to Micon, her slender
immaturity blending into the fantastic imagery of the place and the hour.
"Little Deoris," the Atlantean said, with a kindly smile.
The child, with a shy audacity, tucked her hand into his arm. Her own smile was blissful and yet,
somehow, protective; the dawning woman in Deoris frankly took notice of all that the wiser Domaris
dared not admit that she saw.
They stopped beside a low, sweet-smelling shrub that flowered whitely against the night, and Domaris
sat down, flinging her cloak of silver gossamer from her shoulders. Deoris pulled Micon carefully down
between them, and Rajasta seated himself beside his Acolyte.
"You have watched the stars, Domaris; what see you there?"
"Lord Rajasta," the girl said formally, "Caratra takes a strange position tonight, a conjunction with the
Harpist and the Scythe. If I were to interpret it . . ." She hesitated, and turned her face up to the sky once
again. "She is opposed by the Serpent," Domaris murmured. "I would say that a woman will open a
door to evil, and a woman will bar it. The same woman; but it is another woman's influence that makes it
possible to bar the door." Domaris was silent again for a moment, but before her companions could
speak, she went on, "A child will be born; one that will sire a line to check this evil, forever."
With an unguarded movement, the first one anyone had seen him make, Micon caught clumsily at her
shoulders; "The stars say that?" he demanded hoarsely.
Domaris met his unseeing eyes in an uneasy silence, almost glad for once of his blindness. "Yes," she
said, her voice controlled but husky. "Caratra nears the Zenith, and her Lady, Aderes, attends her. The
Seven Guardians ring her about protecting her not only from the Serpent but the Black Warrior,
El-cherkan, that threatens from the Scorpion's claws . . ."
Micon relaxed, and for a space of minutes leaned weakly against her. Domaris held him gently, letting
him rest against her breast, and in a conscious impulse poured her own strength into him. It was done
unobtrusively, graciously, in response to a need that was imperative, and in the instinctive act she placed
herself in rapport with Micon. The vistas that opened to her from the Initiate's mind were something far
and away beyond her experience or imaginings, Acolyte of the Mysteries though she was; the depth and
surety of his perceptions, the profundity of his awareness, filled her with a reverence she was never to
lose; and his enduring courage and force of purpose moved her to something like worship. The very
limitations of the man proclaimed his innate humanity, his immense humility blending with a kind of pride
which obliterated the usual meaning of the word. . . . She saw the schooled control inhibiting emotions
which would have made another savage or rebellious and suddenly she started. She was foremost in his
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
thoughts! A hot blush, visible even in the starlight, spread over her face.
She pulled out of the rapport quickly, but with a gentleness that left no hurt around the sudden vacancy.
The thought she had surprised was so delicately lovely that she felt hallowed, but it had been so much his
own that she felt a delicious guilt at having glimpsed it.
With a comprehending regret, Micon drew himself away from her. He knew she was confused; Domaris
was not given to speculation about her effect upon men.
Deoris, watching with mingled bewilderment and resentment, broke the filmy connection that still
remained. "Lord Micon, you have tired yourself," she accused, and spread her woolly cloak on the grass
for him.
Rajasta added, "Rest, my brother."
"It was but a moment's weakness," Micon murmured, but he let them have their way, content to lie back
beside Domaris; and after a moment he felt her warm hand touch his, with a feather-soft clasp that
brought no pain to his wrecked fingers.
Rajasta's face was a benediction, and seeing it, Deoris swallowed hard.What's happening to Domaris?
Her sister was changing before her eyes, and Deoris, clinging to what had been the one secure thing in
the fluid world of the Temple, was suddenly terrified. For a moment she almost hated Micon, and
Rajasta's evident acceptance of the situation infuriated her. She raised her eyes, full of angry tears, and
stared fiercely at the blurring stars.
II
A new voice spoke a word of casual greeting, and Deoris started and turned, shivering with a strange
and unfamiliar excitement, half attraction and half fascinated fear.Riveda! Already keyed to a fever pitch
of nervousness, Deoris shrank away as the dark shadow fell across them, blotting out the starlight. The
man was uncanny; she could not look away.
Riveda's courtly, almost ritualistic salute included them all, and he dropped to a seat on the grass. "So,
you watch the stars with your Acolytes, Rajasta? Domaris, what say the stars of me?" The Adept's voice,
even muted in courteous inquiry, seemed to mock at custom and petty ritual alike.
Domaris, with a little frown, came back to her immediate surroundings with some effort. She spoke with
a frigid politeness. "I am no reader of fortunes, Lord Riveda. Should they speak of you?"
"Of me as well as any other," retorted Riveda with a derisive laugh. "Or as ill . . . Come, Deoris, and sit
by me."
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
The little girl looked longingly at Domaris, but no one spoke or looked at her forbiddingly, and so she
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]