Then, like a hand had pinched it out, his lamp darkened. The flame disappeared instantly, leaving Lukien in the dark corridor. Surprised and a bit frightened, his eyes went at once to the distant doors. There he saw a figure blocking out the light and knew at once that Meriel had killed his flame.
‘Who’s there?’ she demanded. Standing on the threshold with the hood about her face, she looked like some demented cleric.
‘Meriel, it’s me, Lukien.’ Lukien stood his ground and kept his tone even. ‘Why did you kill my lamp?’
‘I sensed the fire,’ replied Meriel. ‘I wanted to be alone. What are you doing here, Lukien?’
The flame came to life again in Lukien’s lamp, startling him. He realised he didn’t have a good answer to Meriel’s query.
‘It’s very late,’ he said. He inched toward her. ‘I couldn’t sleep.’
‘So?’
He still couldn’t make her face out clearly. Well hidden in her dark hood, Meriel seemed both angry and concerned. Behind her the prayer chamber wavered with candlelight.
‘So I was thinking about you,’ offered Lukien. ‘You were quiet at supper, and when I went to your room you weren’t there.’
Meriel shrugged. ‘Did you want something?’
‘No, not really. I was just. . Are you praying, Meriel?’
The question caught the woman off guard. She nodded slowly.
‘Ah, well then. .’ Lukien shrugged. ‘I shouldn’t have disturbed you. I’m sorry.’
‘I am fine, Lukien, if that’s what you were wondering,’ said Meriel. ‘I’m done praying, I think. You can come and sit with me.’
‘Why don’t you come upstairs?’ Lukien suggested. ‘We can talk and have some tea.’
Meriel thought for a moment. She didn’t move from the threshold. ‘I’d rather stay here. It’s quiet. I have it all to myself. Come and sit with me.’
Against his own wishes, Lukien complied. As Meriel turned and entered the chamber he followed her inside. At once the light from the many candles assailed his eyes. He put up a hand to shield his face.
‘It’s too much for you,’ said Meriel. With a wave of her hand an invisible breeze blew out half the candles. The gesture unnerved Lukien. On one of the wooden tables he laid down his oil lamp, then glanced around the room, spotting the simple altar and the carpet strewn before it. The friezes on the walls stared at him in stony silence. The flickering light of the remaining candles animated the cast of Akari faces, reminding him why he’d never liked this place. But Meriel seemed at remarkable ease. He caught a glimpse of her face behind her cowl and saw that she’d been weeping. She looked drawn, exhausted. He felt the same suddenly.
‘I shouldn’t have come,’ he told her. ‘And this place. .’ He shrugged. ‘It bothers me.’
‘If you’re troubled this is a good place to be,’ she replied. There was a trio of long benches set back away from the altar. Meriel slid into the second row, leaving room for Lukien. ‘When I don’t know who else to turn to, I speak to the goddess. I don’t know if she listens. She never really answers me.’ She sighed. ‘It’s not like talking to Sarlvarian.’ She turned and looked at Lukien. ‘I know you, Lukien. You didn’t come here just to see me. You have things on your mind, too. Why don’t you tell them to your god? Maybe he’ll listen.’
‘I’m a Liirian. I don’t have a god.’
Meriel nodded. ‘No, I suppose you don’t. Liirians are like the mutts of the world. So many mixed ideas. It must be confusing.’
‘It is,’ Lukien admitted. He sat down on the bench next to Meriel and gazed at the altar. It was so simple, so functional. Did it really have any meaning? Lukien didn’t know, because he’d never been religious or even thought much of gods and goddesses before meeting the Inhumans. Were the Akari gods? If so, they weren’t giving answers either.
‘What do you pray for when you come down here, Meriel?’
Meriel chuckled. ‘The things everyone prays for, I suppose. A better life. Answers. A new face.’
Lukien couldn’t tell if she was joking. ‘Oh.’
She turned to regard him. ‘What would you pray for, Lukien?’ A sly smile turned on her lips. ‘There must be something, or else you wouldn’t have come.’
‘I came to find you, Meriel, because you had me worried. That’s all.’
Her smile was gentle as she said, ‘That’s a lie. You talk, but you don’t say anything, Lukien. There’s always something, just below the surface, just waiting to be said. But here you can say anything you want. Maybe all the gods and goddesses are here! Maybe one of them will have an answer for you.’
The notion made Lukien squirm. ‘That’s not very comforting, to think that gods and devils keep such tabs on us.’ He glanced around at the Akari faces, noting the weird way they had come to life. Yet he knew Meriel was right — he did have questions. Coming to Grimhold had changed his whole perception of the world beyond this one. Once, he had thought that life ended at death, and that the end was permanent. But now he knew the Akari lived on. And Minikin had told him with certainty that life continued after death. If that was true. .
‘I wonder sometimes,’ he whispered, ‘about Cassandra.’
The name hung between them. Hearing it obviously stunned Meriel, who stared at Lukien. He knew that Meriel cared for him, and that speaking the name of his dead lover could only hurt her. But she had pushed him to speak, and the gravity of the prayer chamber had coaxed the name from his lips.
‘I wonder if she lives on,’ he continued, ‘and if I’ll see her again when I die.’
He’d never truly confided that hope to anyone. A great relief settled over him. He looked at Meriel, lost, and found her eyes empty and groping. He had knifed her with his confession. He hadn’t meant to, but the pain on her face was astonishing. At once the candles flickered and dimmed, barely clinging to life, darkening her face in the folds of her cowl.
‘I don’t know,’ she said softly. ‘I don’t know if she’s waiting for you, Lukien. I simply don’t know.’
Lukien nodded and looked away. ‘Maybe it’s a silly thing to hope. But this place — all that I’ve seen here — it makes a man wonder. If the Akari can live on past death, why not the rest of us? Why can’t Cassandra be in the same realm as your Sarlvarian, alive in a different way?’
‘Alive and waiting for you?’ asked Meriel. ‘Is that what you want?’
‘Oh, yes,’ sighed Lukien. ‘She was the world to me. And I would give anything to see her again.’
‘Even your life,’ said Meriel.
‘That’s right. .’
‘And that’s why you don’t care about your life, Lukien. That’s why you fight, that’s why you hope that amulet around your neck dies, so that you may die with it.’ Meriel didn’t look away as she pummelled him with truths. ‘I think you want to die as much as I want to leave Grimhold,’ she told him. ‘I think your life means very little to you.’