Bradley, Marion Zimmer Trillium 04 Lady of the Trillium

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think the Goddess could spread it out a bit more—after all, there are
five of us."
"Did they say anything about a jubilee?" the bird asked anxiously.
"Yes," Mikayla admitted. "There was some brief reference to it during the
presentation to the congregation. You wouldn't believe how heavy that
wretched headdress is—it's given me an awful headache. What's a
jubilee?"
"I'll tell you when I fetch you at the end of the month," Red-Eye said.
"Fine," Mikayla said. "At least after the presentation to the Goddess
tomorrow morning I don't have to wear the headdress again, and the ritual
isn't until next year."
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Red-Eye fetched her at the end of her month of service. Instead of taking her
back to the Tower, it took her to its cave on Mount Rotolo. But when it tried to
explain the concept of the Goddess's Jubilee, she didn't believe it.
"You're crazy, Red-Eye," she said. "They aren't going to kill me; I still owe
them three more years of service after next year."
"But that's what the Jubilee is," Red-Eye insisted. "Every two hundreds the
Goddess needs a new heart to renew her life and rule for the next two
hundreds. And it's the Youngest Daughter of the Goddess that they sacrifice."
"If they haven't done it for two hundreds," Mikayla pointed out, "you can't
possibly know about it."
"But I do," it insisted. "The Priests of the Time of Darkness— the ones
who made me—are the ones who perform the sacrifice. They are part of
the priesthood of the Goddess Meret."
"How could I have spent three years in Her Temple and never met them?"
Mikayla asked skeptically.
"You've spent three months there," the bird replied, "not three years, and
you've spent it all shut up with the Temple virgins, which doesn't let you see
much of what goes on in the Temple as a whole. The Priests of the Time of
Darkness are nocturnal. Your rituals run from Dawn to the Second Hour of
Darkness. The rest of the night is theirs. The only time they come out in the
daytime is for the sacrifice."
"If you say so," Mikayla said politely, privately thinking that the bird was
paranoid about its creators, even if they did belong to the Temple. "I think
you'd better take me back to the Tower, Red-Eye. Last I heard, Haramis
wasn't well at all. I'm probably needed there."
Haramis was indeed still very unwell, unable even to rise from her bed. Uzun
spent all his time with her, and Fiolon left for Var shortly after Mikayla's
return, saying that he had to see to things in Let.
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Mikayla spent most of the next year being bored and feeling useless, so when
the time came for her to return to the Temple, she was ready to go. But to her
amazement, Red-Eye flatly refused to take her.
"I told you they'll kill you if you go there," it said, almost hysterically. "You
can't go!"
"I promised I would," Mikayla said. "If you won't take me, I'll just have to wait
until morning and ask one of the other lammergeiers."
"I'll tell your cousin," Red-Eye declared. "He'll stop you."
"He's in Var," Mikayla pointed out. "And he knows that keeping my promises
is important to me. He won't try to stop me."
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Haramis sat bolt upright in bed and stared at Uzun in horror.
"Mikayla is doing what ?"
"She's going to be sacrificed to Meret," Uzun said wretchedly. "That was the
bargain she made in exchange for my new body. But she didn't know what she
was agreeing to," he added urgently. "We have to stop her!"
"When and where is this taking place?" Haramis asked, feeling sick. I knew
the girl was unhappy here, I knew she didn't like me, but I had no idea
…
"The day after tomorrow, at dawn," Uzun replied grimly. "At Meret's Temple
on Mount Gidris."
"Why Mikayla?" Haramis asked. Uzun sighed, and she said hastily, "I know
you said it was in exchange for your body, but why would they want to
sacrifice Mikayla, rather than someone else? What makes her special to
them?"
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"She's a royal virgin," Uzun said bitterly. "I'll bet they were thrilled when she
fell into their hands. I should never have complained about being a harp," he
added miserably.
"She's hardly the only royal virgin in existence," Haramis pointed out. "Her
youngest brother is probably still one—what is he now, sixteen? And
Fiolon is royal and presumably still a virgin."
"They're male," Uzun said. "Mikayla's the virgin daughter of a King."
"So what?" Haramis said without thinking. "So am I." Then she realized what
she had said, and repeated it with a different inflection. "So am I. If all they
want is the virgin daughter of a king…" Her voice trailed off as she
thought.
"No, you could not take her place," Uzun snapped. "You don't look anything
like Mikayla."
"A simple glamour," Haramis said. "She and I are nearly the same size; all
we'd have to do is change clothes."
"Haramis," Uzun said through clenched wooden teeth. "You can't cast a
simple glamour. You can't even talk to the lammergeiers anymore. You can't
even scry! You have been ill, and you do not yet have your powers back."
Haramis just looked at him, feeling the pieces of her life slip into a pattern.
"I'm sorry, old friend," she said softly. "I can take her place, and I must. I owe
it to her, and I owe it to the land. I have had," she continued dispassionately,
"at least two major brainstorms in the last five years, and the Flower only
knows"-her fingers went to the bit of Trillium embedded in amber in the
Talisman about her neck—"how many minor ones. I haven't been able
to talk to the lammergeiers since the first one, and with each successive
attack, I lose more of my abilities. I have virtually no magic left, and my
physical body is failing. Since it's over two hundreds old, that shouldn't be too
surprising. And every time that I get sick, so does the land. Look what
happened last time— the damage was so bad that Fiolon came running
up here all the way from Var! If the inhabitants of Var are noticing our
troubles, I am not doing my job."
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"Fiolon was the only one who noticed," Uzun said, "and he and Mikayla were
able to fix the damage. Besides, that was the time before last, not last time.
Nothing dreadful happened last time." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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