"You are no use as a bodyguard if you are dead!" Goldmoon retorted, not understanding her own anger. Remembering those terrible moments when she thought Riverwind was going to die, she began to tremble.
"I suppose not," Riverwind said, chagrined. She could hear him withdraw even further.
Reaching out, Goldmoon found his hands in the darkness and took them in her own. "And, if you had died, I would have died out there, too," she whispered.
Riverwind drew several deep breaths without speaking. Goldmoon could feel his hands quivering in her own. Releasing his hands and moving forward, she wrapped her arms about him and rested her head against his chest. This time she noticed that his leather armor smelled of the spiced oil used to clean it. Riverwind pressed her near, holding her gently. In the cold, damp cavern, he radiated heat like a fire.
"When you first approached womanhood," he whispered, "and I saw then your beauty, I asked my family what age you would have to be before Arrowthorn would allow men to court you." He stroked her hair as he spoke.
Not interrupting him, Goldmoon luxuriated in the feel of his broad back beneath her hands, of his arm about her shoulders.
"My adopted parents tried to make me see that my poverty and faith would always keep us apart," Riverwind continued, "but I would not believe them. You never noticed me when I watched you, but others did, and Loreman himself came to our hut to warn my parents to keep me away from you."
Goldmoon guessed that that must have been the time she'd first heard her father discussing Riverwind with Loreman in hushed tones.
Riverwind continued his story. "My father sent me out to watch sheep in the fields farthest from the village. My mother's skill at weaving is great, so many send their daughters to apprentice under her, even though Loreman has forbidden it. My mother would invite the loveliest of these girls to eat with our family, but the memory of your face stayed with me. Then one night, Wanderer's spirit came to me and told me of the games held to choose escorts for the priestess's pilgrimage to this place. He said that some day you would give your heart to one of those escorts."
"And so I have," Goldmoon whispered. She raised her lips, so that she could kiss him, but Riverwind pulled away from her and held her at arms length.
"I must admit," the warrior said, "I felt certain of myself, seated next to you at the banquet. I could not imagine you with Hollow-sky, though my mother often warned me that the two of you were a likely match. When I saw you watching the dancers and realized you wanted to dance, I thought, 'She is just a woman, like other women.' But I was wrong. You will never be just a woman. You are and always will be Chieftain's Daughter. Now I doubt my worthiness. I am still poor, and our gods remain different."
Goldmoon was silent for many moments, before she said, "If I do not doubt your worthiness, then neither should you. And your fortunes might change."
"And the gods?" Riverwind asked.
"They will show us a way."
"Whose?"
"Yours, mine, both — it makes no difference. My mother used to say that hope is a gift from the gods we must never lose."
"My mother has said that, too," Riverwind replied. "Well, we must find some way out of here, or it will truly make no difference to our corpses!"
Goldmoon felt him take her hand in his and together they edged their way along the wall. They reached the passageway without trouble.
Wondering if her eyes were playing tricks, Goldmoon asked, "Is that a light ahead?"
"I think so." They moved more quickly along the corridor toward the light. Soon it grew bright enough that they could see all about them. Looking for the source of the illumination, Goldmoon saw movement on the smooth cut rock. Looking closer, she realized that the light came from brightly glowing red spots on the insects' backs.
"I think they're fire beetles," Riverwind said.
"Those are only in children's stories."
"I think we are in a children's story," Riverwind said, able to chuckle a little in relief. "Let me have your crystal globe. These little light legends may not live in other passages, so we will need to take them with us."
Goldmoon unfastened the crystal globe from her belt and surrendered it. The other two globes still lay on the grass outside. Riverwind gently scraped several of the beetles into the sphere.
"Here's the lid," she offered.
"I'm afraid they might suffocate."
"Air will get in. There are tiny holes in the lid," the priestess explained. "I've often wondered why. Do you suppose these globes were originally made for this purpose?" she asked.
"This one functions well as a lamp. That is all that is important." Riverwind held the globe up by its straps, and they made their way safely into the crypts of the Que-shu royalty.
The crypt cavern was so huge that their little light did not illuminate the ceiling or the walls beyond. At the edge of the darkness they could make out the shape of the tombs. The very first they came to bore the inscription, "Tearsong — beloved of Arrowthorn." Goldmoon slid her hand along the words and then snatched it back. The rock was cold. "Cold as death," she thought, shuddering slightly. She moved hurriedly past the memorial to her mother.
The floor sloped down as they passed the remains of three centuries of the princess's ancestors. At the bottom of the slope, Goldmoon could make out a stone altar, carved with the forever sign of her amulet. Realizing that she shouldn't be able to see the carving in the darkness, she became aware that the light around the altar was blue, not red, and that it came from the altar.
The priestess knew that the moment she had awaited had come. She knelt in front of the altar and sang:
"The red sun has risen
the blue doors have opened.
I kneel here before you,
to sing you my song.
You who have left us,
we ask for your blessing."
Goldmoon waited patiently in prayerful silence for several minutes, but nothing happened, no one answered. Fear crept into her. Was there some part of this ceremony that her father had not known about, something that Tearsong had carried with her to the grave?
Then a voice spoke, "My beloved child! What joy it is to see you!"
"Mother!" Goldmoon cried out. Her throat constricted in emotion as all the years of loneliness and longing for Tearsong, of quickly suppressed doubt that she would ever actually speak to her again, overwhelmed the young priestess.
Tearsong's laughter rang through the hall like tinkling glass and filled Goldmoon with a pleasure that was also painful. The air shimmered with light as Tearsong's form coalesced in the air behind Goldmoon. Tears of grief and joy welled in the princess's eyes. A harvest of loving memories, which had long lain dormant in sorrow, filled her. Her mother's sculpted features and jet-black hair were even more lovely than she remembered.
"Mother. This is Riverwind," Goldmoon started to say, turning around to summon the warrior forward, but all was darkness behind her.
"I cannot appear to Riverwind."
"But you must! You see, he does not believe that — »
" — that I am a goddess." Tearsong nodded. "He is right. I am a spirit only, and I have only a little time to speak with you — so listen carefully. You are a woman now, Goldmoon, and you must hear the truth and accept it. The gods of the Que-shu, the gods I served all my life, are false. It makes no difference whether or not Loreman has written your name in the tribe's Book of the Gods. Men cannot make gods of each other."
"But I am Chieftain's Daughter!" Goldmoon protested in disbelief.
The spirit of Tearsong smiled at her daughter's arrogance. "Your status in life, whether chieftain or healer, priestess or shepherd, has no influence on the judgment of the true gods. And the true gods will be your final judges, not your tribe, not your father, not myself. The true gods reward each person in the afterlife according to his or her virtues, not some circumstance of birth."