"Oh, I don't care about the bird! It's you!" Deoris wailed, and flung her arms around Domaris, crying harder than ever. Domaris held her tight, feeling that Deoris was finally giving way to the frozen resentment she had been unable to speak before; that now perhaps they could cross that barrier which had lain between them since the night in the Star Field ... but, finally, she had to remind her: "Gently, Deoris. Hold me not so tightly, you must not hurt us—"
Abruptly, Deoris's arms dropped to her sides and she turned away without a word.
Domaris stretched out her hand, pleading. "Deoris, don't draw away like that, I didn't mean—Deoris, can I say nothing that does not wound you?"
"You don't want me!" Deoris accused miserably. "You don't have to pretend."
"Oh, Deoris!" The grey eyes were misted now with tears. "How can you be jealous? How can you? Deoris, don't you know that Micon is dying? Dying! And I must stand between him and death!" Her hands clasped again, with that strange gesture, across her body. "Until our son is born—"
Blindly, Deoris caught her sister in her arms, hugging her close, anything to shut out that terrible, naked grief. Her self-pity fell away, and for the first time in her life she tasted a sorrow that was more than personal, knowing she could only try to comfort where there clearly could be no comfort, vainly try to say what she knew to be untrue ... and for the first time, her own rebellion fell away, unimportant before her sister's tragedy.
Chapter Ten: MEN OF PURPOSE
I
With a definiteness that left no room for argument, Riveda at last informed Rajasta that his house had been set in order. Rajasta complimented him on work well done, and the Adept bowed and took his leave, a faintly derisive smile behind his heavy-lidded eyes.
The investigation into forbidden sorceries by members of his Order had lasted half a year. It had resulted in a round dozen of merited floggings for rather minor blasphemies and infringements: misuse of ceremonial objects, the wearing or display of outlasted symbols, and other similar offenses. There had also been two serious cases—not clearly connected—involving lesser Adepts who had been beaten and then expelled from the rolls of the Grey-robe sect. One had made use of certain alchemical potions to induce various otherwise blameless neophytes and saji to take part in acts of excessive sexual cruelty which, afterward, the victims could not even remember. In the other of these two cases, the culprit had broken into a locked shelf of the Order's private library and stolen some scrolls. This alone would have been bad enough, but it turned out that the man had been growing contagious disease cultures in his rooms. Decontamination procedures were still going on, so far with good hopes of a satisfactory outcome.
Still, all this had warned the undetected that Riveda was alert to their existence, and further progress was not likely to be easy.
For Riveda himself, the greatest reward, in some ways, was the discovery of a new field of experiment with tremendous potentials, which the Adept intended to test. The key to it was the stranger he had taken on as chela. Under hypnosis the lad revealed strange knowledge, and a stranger power—though hypnosis was necessary to make any impression on the odd apathy of the unknown, who existed (one could not say he lived) as in a shell of dark glass over which events passed as shadowy reflections, holding attention only a moment. His mind was locked away, as if from some recent horror and shame that had frozen him; but in his rare ravings he burst forth with oddly coherent words that sometimes gave Riveda clues to great things—long vistas of knowledge which Riveda himself could only glimpse were hidden in that seemingly damaged mind.
Whether the man was Micon's brother, Riveda did not know, nor did he care. He felt, quite sincerely, that any attempt to confront the two could only harm them both. Scrupulously he refrained from making serious inquiry into the chela's origin, or into the mystery of his coming to the Grey Temple.
However, Riveda did watch Micon—always casual, as became a Magician among Priests of Light; always detached, barely hovering on the edges of the Atlantean's circle of acquaintances, but studying them intently. Riveda quickly saw that for Domaris all had ceased to exist, save only Micon; he also discerned Rajasta's preoccupation with the blind Initiate, a relationship which transcended that of fellow-Priests and approached, at times, that of father and son. It was with somewhat less casualness that he watched Deoris.
Riveda did not very often agree with Rajasta, but in this case, both sensed strange potentialities in the young girl. With the coming of her womanhood, Deoris might be powerful, if she were properly taught. Yet, though he had spent much time in meditation over the question, Riveda could not quite determine exactly what potentialities he saw in her—possibly because they were many, and varied.
She seemed to be, Riveda noticed, Micon's pupil as well as his scribe. Somehow this enraged the Adept, as if Micon were usurping a privilege which should be Riveda's own. The Atlantean's impersonal and diffident guidance of the girl's thoughts impressed Riveda as fumbling, overcautious, and incompetent. In his opinion, they were holding Deoris back, where she should be allowed—even, if necessary, compelled—to open and unfold.
He watched, with detached humor, the growth of her interest in him; and, with even more amusement, the childish and stormy progress of her relationship with Chedan, an Acolyte and the pledged husband of Elis. Temple gossip (to which Riveda was not as deaf as he tried to seem) often made reference to the strained relations between Elis and Chedan... .
Chedan's infatuation with Deoris may have begun as an attempt, pure and simple, to spite Elis. In any case, it was now more serious than that. Whether Deoris really cared for Chedan or not—and not even Domaris pretended to know that—she accepted his attentions with gravely mischievous pleasure. Micon and Domaris watched and welcomed this new state of affairs, believing that it might bring Deoris some understanding of their own predicament, and alleviate her hostility to their love.
Riveda happened upon them one morning in an outdoor garden: Deoris, seated on the grass at Micon's feet, was sorting and caring for her writing instruments; Chedan, a slender brown-eyed stripling in the robes of an Acolyte, bent over her, smiling. Riveda was too far away to hear their words, but the two children—they were hardly more, especially in Riveda's eyes—disagreed on something. Deoris sprang up, indignant; Chedan fled in pretended terror, and Deoris raced after him, laughing.
Micon looked up at Riveda's approaching steps, and stretched out his hand in welcome—but he did not rise, and Riveda was struck anew by the ravages of pain in the blind Initiate's face. As always, because he was smitten by devastating pity, he took refuge in the mocking deference with which he masked his deepest emotions.
"Hail, Lord of Ahtarrath! Have your disciples fled from teachings over-wise? Or are you ready with a birchen rod for your neophytes?"
Micon, sensing the sarcasm, was wearily perplexed. He had genuinely tried to conquer his first wariness of Riveda, and his own failure dismayed him. Superficially, of course, Riveda was an easy man to like; yet Micon thought he could almost as easily hate this man, if he would permit himself to do so.
Now, sternly disciplining himself, Micon shrugged off Riveda's sardonic mood and instead spoke of the fevers that regularly decimated the coastal hills, and of the famine that might rage if too many men were disabled by disease and could not harvest the crops. "It is your Healers who can do most to remedy that," he complimented, sincerely and deliberately. "I have heard of the fine work which you have done among them, Lord Riveda. These same Healers were, if I recall rightly, hardly more than corrupt charlatans, not ten years ago—"