"But the priests knew," said a voice at her side. "For the past hundred years, they have been building the star temple here on the plains, so that they might not lose count of the tracking of the seasons, or of the coming of eclipses of the moon and sun. These people here, they know nothing of such things, but they know we are wise, priests and priestesses from over the sea, and they will build for us, as they did before ... ."
Igraine looked up, without surprise, at the blue-cloaked figure by her side, and although his face was very different, and he wore a strange high headdress crowned with serpent?, and golden serpents about his arms- torques or bracelets-his eyes were the eyes of Uther Pendragon.
The wind grew cold over the high windswept plain where the stone ring awaited the sun, rising over the heel stone. With the eyes of her living body Igraine had never seen the Temple of the Sun at Salisbury, for the Druids would not go near it. Who, they demanded, could worship the Greater Gods behind the Gods in a temple built by human hands? And so they held their rites within groves of trees, planted by the hands of the Gods. But when she was a girl, Viviane had told her of it, precisely calculated, by arts lost today, so that even those who did not know the secrets of the priests could tell when eclipses were to come, and trace the movements of stars and seasons.
Igraine knew that Uther, at her side-or was it indeed Uther, this tall man in the robe of a priesthood drowned centuries ago in a land now called legend?-was looking westward at the flaming sky.
"So at last it has come as they told us," he said, and laid his arm about her shoulders. "I never truly believed it till this moment, Morgan."
For a moment, Igraine, wife of Gorlois, wondered why this man should call her by the name of her child; yet even as she formed the question in her mind she knew that "Morgan" was not a name, but the title of a priestess, meaning no more than "woman come from the sea," in a religion which even the Merlin of Britain would have found a legend and the shadow of a legend.
She heard herself say, without volition, "I too found it impossible, that Lyonnesse and Ahtarrath and Ruta should fall and vanish away as if they had never been. Do you believe it is true, that the Gods are punishing the land of Atlantis for their sins?"
"I do not believe the Gods work that way," the man at her side said. "The land trembles in the great ocean beyond the ocean we know, and although the people of Atlantis spoke of the lost lands of Mu and Hy-Brasil, still I know that in the greatest ocean beyond the sunset, the land shakes, and islands rise and disappear even where the folk know nothing of sin or evil, but live as the innocent ones before the Gods gave us knowledge to choose good or ill. And if the earth Gods wreak vengeance on the sinless and the sinful alike, then this further destruction cannot be punishment for sins, but is in the way of all nature. I do not know if there is purpose in this destruction, or whether the land is not yet settled into its final form, even as we men and women are not yet perfected. Perhaps the land too struggles to evolve its soul and perfect itself. I do not know, Morgan. These things are matters for the highest Initiates. I know only that we have brought away the secrets of the temples, which we were pledged never to do, and thus we are forsworn."
She said, shaking, "But the priests bade us to do so."
"No priest can absolve us for that oath breaking, for a word sworn before the Gods resonates throughout time. And so we will suffer for it. It was not right that all the knowledge of our temples should be lost beneath the sea, and so we were sent away to bring the knowledge out, in full knowledge that we should suffer, life to life, for the breaking of that vow. It had to be, my sister."
She said resentfully, "Why should we be punished beyond this life for what we were bidden to do? Did the priests think it right that we should suffer for obeying them?"
"No," said the man, "but remember the oath we swore-" and his voice suddenly broke. "Swore in a temple now lost under the sea, where great Orion shall rule no more. We swore to share the lot of him who stole fire from heaven, that man should not live in darkness. Great good came of that gift of fire, but great evil too, for man learned misuse and wickedness ... and so he who stole the fire, even though his name is revered in every temple for bringing the light to mankind, suffers forever the torments where he is chained, with the vulture gnawing ever at his heart ... . These things are mysteries: that man can obey the priests blindly, and the laws they make, and live in ignorance, or he can disobey willfully, following the bringer of Light, and bear the sufferings of the Wheel of Rebirth. And look-" He pointed upward, to where the figure of the Greater-than-Gods swung, the three stars of purity and righteousness and choice in his belt. "He stands there still, though his temple is gone; and look, there the Wheel swings through his revolving path, even though the earth below may writhe in torment and cast temples and cities and mankind into a fiery death. And we have built here a new temple, so that his wisdom need never die."
The man she knew to be Uther, within, laid his arm about her, and she knew that she was weeping. He pulled her face roughly up to his and kissed her, and she tasted salt from his own tears on his lips. He said, "I cannot regret it. They tell us in the temple that true joy is found only in freedom from the Wheel that is death and rebirth, that we must come to despise earthly joy and suffering, and long only for the peace of the presence of the eternal. Yet I love this life on Earth, Morgan, and I love you with a love that is stronger than death, and if sin is the price of binding us together, life after life across the ages, then I will sin joyfully and without regret, so that it brings me back to you, my beloved!"
Never in all her life had Igraine known a kiss such as this one, passionate, and yet it seemed as if some essence beyond mere lust held them bound to each other. At that moment memory flooded through her, of where she had first known this man-of the great marble pillars and golden stairs of the great Temple of Orion, and of the City of the Serpent below, with the avenue of sphinxes, beasts with bodies as of lions and faces of women, leading up the great road to the Temple ... here they stood on a barren plain, with a ring of undressed stones, and a fire to the west that was the dying light of the land of their birth, where they had dwelt together in the Temple since they were little children, and where they had been joined together in the holy fire, never to be parted while they should live. And now they had done that which would join them beyond death, too ... .
"I love this land," he said violently again. "Here we stand where the temples are made with unhewn stone, and not with silver and gold and orichalcum, but already I love this land, so that I willingly give my life to keep it safe, this cold land where the sun never shines ... " and he shivered beneath his cloak; but Igraine pulled him round, turning their backs on the dying fires of Atlantis.
"Look to the east," she said, "for always, while the light dies in the west, there is the promise of rebirth from the east." And they stood, clasped together, as the sun blazed, rising behind the eye of the great stone.
The man whispered, "This is indeed the great cycle of life and death ... " and even as he spoke, he drew her to him. "A day will come when people will forget, and this will be no more than a ring of stones. But I will remember, and I will come back to you, beloved, I swear it."
And then she heard the voice of the Merlin saying somberly, "Take care what you pray for, for you will certainly be given that."
And silence; and Igraine found herself, naked, wrapped only in her cloak, huddled before the last cold ashes of the fire in her room in their lodging; and Gorlois snoring softly in the bed.
Shaking, she wrapped herself tightly in the shawl and crept, chilled to the bone, back to the bed, burrowing for some remnants of warmth. Morgan. Morgaine. Had she given her child that name because it was truly one she had borne? Was it only a bizarre dream sent by the Merlin, to convince her that once she had known Uther Pendragon in some former life?