"Domaris—where are you?" His blind face turned to follow the sound of her voice, and she darted to him, pausing—no longer even regretful that she could not throw herself into his arms—a careful step away, and lightly touching his arm, raised her face for his kiss.
His lips lingered an instant longer than usual; then he withdrew his face a little and murmured, "Heart of flame, you are excited. You bring news."
"I bring news." Her voice was softly triumphant, but failed her. She took the racked hands lightly in her own and pressed them softly against her body, begging him to understand without being told... . Perhaps he read her thoughts; perhaps he only guessed from the gesture. Whichever it may have been, his face grew bright with an inner brilliance, and his arms went out to gather her close.
"You bring light," he whispered, and kissed her again
She hid her face on his breast. "It is sure now beloved. This time it is sure! I have guessed it for weeks, and I would not speak of it, for fear that—but now there is no doubt! He—our son—stirred today!"
"Domaris—beloved—"
The man's voice choked, and she felt burning tears drop from the blind eyes onto her face. His hands, usually so sternly controlled, trembled so violently that he could not raise them to hers, and as she held herself to him, loving him and almost drowning in the intensity of this love so closely akin to worship, she felt Micon's trembling as even a strong tree will tremble a little before a hurricane.
"My beloved, my blessed one ..." With a reverence that hurt and frightened the girl, Micon dropped to his knees, in the sand, and managed to clasp her two hands, pressing them to his cheeks, his lips. "Bearer of Light, it is my life you hold, my freedom," he whispered.
"Micon! I love you, I love you," the girl stammered incoherently—because there was nothing else that she could possibly have said.
The Initiate rose, his control somewhat regained, though still trembling slightly, and gently dried her tears. "Domaris," he said, with tender gravity, "I—there is no way to tell you—I mean, I will try, but—" His mouth took on an even greater seriousness, and the twist of pain and regret and uncertainty there was like knives in Domaris's heart.
"Domaris," he said, and his voice rang in the deep and practiced tones that she recognized as the Atlantean's oath-voice. "I will—try," he promised solemnly, "to stay with you until our son is born."
And Domaris knew that she had pronounced the beginning of the end.
Chapter Six: IN THE SISTERHOOD
I
The Temple of Caratra, which overlooked the Shrine and the holy pool, was one of the most beautiful buildings of the entire Temple precinct. It was fashioned of milky stone, veined with shimmering, opalescent fires in the heart of the rock. Long gardens, linked by palisaded arbors covered with trailing vines, surrounded pool and Temple; cool fountains splashed in the courts where a profusion of flowers bloomed the year round.
Within these white and glistening walls, every child of the Temple was born, whether child to slave-maiden or to the High Priestess. Here, also, every young girl within the Temple was sent to render service in her turn (for all women owed service to the Mother of All Men); in assisting the Priestesses, in caring for the mothers and for the newly born, even (if she was of a satisfactory rank in the Priest's Caste) in learning the secrets of bringing children to birth. And every year thereafter she spent a certain assigned period—ranging from a single day for slave women and commoners, to an entire month for Acolytes and Priestesses—living and serving in the Temple of the Mother; and from this assigned yearly service, not the humblest slave nor the highest Initiate was ever exempted.
Over a year before, Deoris had been adjudged old enough to enter upon her time of service; but a severe, though brief, attack of fever had intervened, and somehow her name had been passed over. Now her name was called again; but although most of the young girls of the Priest's Caste looked on this service rather eagerly, as a sign of their own oncoming womanhood, it was with reluctance bordering on rebellion that Deoris made her preparations.
Once—almost two years earlier, at the time of her first approach to the Shrine—she had been given her initial lesson in the delivery of a baby. The experience had bewildered her. She dreaded a recurrence of the questions it raised in her mind. She had seen the straining effort, and the agony, and had been revolted at the seeming cruelty of it all—though she had also witnessed, after all that, the ecstatic welcome that the mother had given the tiny mite of humanity. Beyond the puzzlement she had felt at this contradictory behavior, Deoris had been dismayed at her own feelings: the bitter hurt that she too must one day be woman and lie there in her turn, struggling to bring forth life. The eternal "Why?" beat incessantly at her brain. Now, when she had almost managed to forget, it would be before her again.
"I can't, I won't," she burst out in protest to Micon. "It's cruel—horrible—"
"Hush, Deoris." The Atlantean reached for her nervously twisting hands, catching and holding them despite his blindness. "Do you not know that to live is to suffer, and to bring life is to suffer?" He sighed, a feint and restrained sound. "I think pain is the law of life ... and if you can help, dare you refuse?"
"I don't dare—but I wish I did! Lord Micon, you don't know what it's like!"
Checking his first impulse to laugh at her naivete, Micon reassured her, gently, "But I do know. I wish I could help you to understand, Deoris; but there are things everyone must learn alone—"
Deoris, flushed and appalled, choked out the question, "But how can you know—that?" In the world of the Temple, childbirth was strictly an affair for women, and to Deoris, whose whole world was the Temple, it seemed impossible that a man could know anything of the complexities of birth. Was it not everywhere a rigid, unalterable custom that no man might approach a childbed? No one, surely, could imagine this ultimate indecency! How could Micon, fortunate enough to have been born a man, even guess at it?
Micon could no longer restrain himself; his laughter only served to bruise Deoris's feelings even more. "Why, Deoris," he said, "men are not so ignorant as you think!" As her hurt silence dragged on, he tried to amend his statement. "Our customs in Atlantis are not like yours, child—you must remember—" He let an indulgent, teasing tone creep into his voice. "You must remember what barbarians we are in the Sea Kingdoms! And believe me, not all men are in ignorance, even here. And—my child, do you think I know nothing of pain?" He hesitated for a moment; could this be the right moment to tell Deoris that her sister bore his child? Instinct told him that Deoris, wavering on the balance between acceptance and rejection, might be swayed in the right direction by the knowledge. Yet it seemed to him it was Domaris's right, not his, to speak or be silent. His words blurred in sudden weariness. "Darling, I wish I could help you. Try to remember this: to live, you need every experience. Some will come in glory and in beauty, and some in pain and what seems like ugliness. But—they are. Life consists of opposites in balance."
Deoris sighed, impatient with the pious repetition—she had heard it before. Domaris, too, had failed her. She had tried, really tried, to make Domaris understand; Domaris had only looked at her, uncomprehending, and said, "But every woman must do that service."
"But it's so awful!" Deoris had wailed.
Domaris, stern-eyed, advised her not to be a silly little girl; that it was the way of nature, and that no one could change it. Deoris had stammered on, inclined to beg, cry, plead, convinced that Domaris could change it, if she only would.