Bradley, Marion Zimmer Fall of Atlantis

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Her marriage to Arvath had been a travesty, a mockery, a weary duty, a defilement and for nothing.
One morning, in the library, unable to concentrate, Rajasta thought in sudden misery,It is my doing.
Deoris warned me that Domaris should not have another child, and I said nothing of it! I could
have stopped them from forcing her into marriage. Instead I have sanctimoniously crushed the life
from the girl who was child to me in my childless old age the daughter of my own soul. I have
sent my daughter into the place of harlots! And my own light is darkened in her shame.
Throwing aside the scroll he had ineffectually been perusing, Rajasta rose up and went in search of
Domaris, intending to promise that her marriage should be dissolved; that he would move heaven and
earth to have it set aside.
He told her nothing of the kind for before he could speak a word she told him, with a strange, secret,
and not unhappy smile, that once again she was bearing Arvath a child.
Chapter Ten
IN THE LABYRINTH
I
Failure was, of all things, the most hateful to Riveda. Now he faced failure; and a common chela, his
own chela, in fact, had had the audacity to protect him! The fact that Reio-ta's intervention had saved all
their lives made no difference to Riveda's festering hate.
All three had suffered. Reio-ta had escaped most lightly, with blistering burns across shoulders and arms;
easily treated, easily explained away. Riveda's hands were seared to the bone maimed, he thought
grimly, for life. But thedorje lightning had struck Deoris first with its searing lash; her shoulders, arms, and
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sides were blistered and scorched, and across her breasts the whips of fire had eaten deep, leaving their
unmistakable pattern a cruel sigil stamped with the brand of the blasphemous fire.
Riveda, with his almost-useless hands, did what he could. He loved the girl as deeply as it was in his
nature to love anyone, and the need for secrecy maddened him, for he knew himself incapable now of
caring for her properly; he lacked the proper remedies, lacked with his hands maimed the skill to use
them. But he dared not seek assistance. The Priests of Light, seeing the color and the fearful form of her
wounds, would know instantly what had made them and then swift, sure, and incontrovertible,
punishment would strike. Even his own Grey-robes could not be trusted in this; not even they would dare
to conceal any such hideous tampering with the forces rightly locked in nature. His only chance of aid lay
among the Black-robes; and if Deoris were to live, he must take that chance. Without care, she might not
survive another night.
With Reio-ta's assistance, he had taken her to a hidden chamber beneath the Grey Temple, but he dared
not leave her there for long. To still her continual moans he had mixed a strong sedative, as strong as he
dared, and forced her to swallow it; she had fallen into restless sleep, and while her fretful whimperings
did not cease, the potion blurred her senses enough to dull the worst of the agony.
With a sting of guilt Riveda found himself thinking again what he had thought about Micon:Why did they
not confine their hell's play to persons of no importance, or having dared so far, at least make
certain their victims did not escape to carry tales?
He would have let Reio-ta die without compunction. As Prince of Ahtarrath, he had been legally dead
for years; and what was one crazy chela more or less? Deoris, however, was the daughter of a powerful
priest; her death would mean full and merciless investigation. Talkannon was not one to be trifled with,
and Rajasta would almost certainly suspect Riveda first of all.
The Adept felt some shame at his weakness, but he still would not admit, even to himself, that he loved
Deoris, that she had become necessary to him. The thought of her death made a black aching within him,
an ache so strong and gnawing that he forgot the agonies in his seared hands.
II
After a long, blurred nightmare when she seemed to wander through flames and lightning and shadows
out of half-forgotten awful legends, Deoris opened her eyes on a curious scene.
She was lying upon a great couch of carven stone, in a heap of downy cushions. Above was fixed one of
the ever-burning lamps, whose flame, leaping and wavering, made the carved figures on the rails of the
couch into shapes of grotesque horror. The air was damp and rather chilly, and smelled musty, like cold
stone. She wondered at first if she were dead and laid in a vault, and then became aware that she was
swathed in moist, cool bandages. There was pain in her body, but it was all far away, as if that swaddled
mass of bandages belonged to someone else.
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She turned her head a little, with difficulty, and made out the shape of Riveda, familiar even with his back
to her; and before him a man Deoris recognized with a little shiver of terror Nadastor, a Grey-robe
Adept. Middle-aged, gaunt, and ascetic in appearance, Nadastor was darkly handsome and yet
forbidding. Nor was he robed now in the grey robe of a Magician, but in a long black tabard,
embroidered and blazoned with strange emblems; on his head was a tall, mitered hat, and between his
hands he held a slight glass rod.
Nadastor was speaking, in a low, cultured voice that reminded Deoris vaguely of Micon's: "You say she
is notsaji? "
"Far from it," Riveda answered dryly. "She is Talkannon's daughter, and a Priestess."
Nadastor nodded slowly. "I see. That does make a difference. Of course, if it were mere personal
sentiment, I would still say you should let her die. But . . ."
"I have made herSA#kti SidhA#na. "
"Within the restraints you have always burdened yourself with," Nadastor murmured, "you have dared
much. I knew that you had a great power, of course; that was clear from the first. Were it not for the
coward's restrictions imposed by the Ritual . . ." [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

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