Deoris stood for a moment in dumb surprise. A glance at Domaris, who stood off to one side, showed her that her sister had gone chalky white; she had not known, either.
There was a moment of awkward silence; then Micon picked up a scroll which lay near him. "Rajasta left this for me. I should like to hear you read." He handed it to Deoris with a courteous gesture, and the child, wrenching her eyes from Domaris, unfastened it, seating herself upon the scribe's stool which was placed at the foot of Micon's chair. She began to read, in the steady and poised voice which never failed a trained scribe, whatever her emotions.
Left to herself, Domaris recovered her composure: she retired to a niche in the wall and murmured the soft note which lighted it brilliantly. She tried to become absorbed in a page of text, but, try as she might to fix her attention on her own tasks, her eyes kept returning, as with separate will of their own, to the man who sat motionless, listening to the soft monotonous murmur of the child's reading. She had not even guessed! So normal his movements, so beautiful the deep eyes—why should it affect her so? Had he, then, been the prisoner of the Black-robes? She had seen his hands, the gaunt twisted travesties of flesh and bone that had once, perhaps, been strong and skillful. Who and what was this man?
In the strange confusion of her emotions, there was not a shred of pity. Why could she not pity him, as she pitied others who were blinded or tortured or lamed? For a moment she felt sharp resentment—how dared he be impervious to her pity?
But I envy Deoris, she thought irrationally. Why should I?
Chapter Two: OF DISTANT STORMS
I
There was no thunder, but the insistent flicker of summer lightning came and went through the opened shutters. Inside it was damply hot. The two girls lay on narrow pallets placed side by side on the cool brick floor, both nearly naked beneath a thin linen sheet. The thinnest of net canopies hung unstirring above them. The heat clung like thick robes.
Domaris, who had been pretending to sleep, suddenly rolled over and freed one long plait of her loosened hair from Deoris's outflung arm. She sat up. "You needn't be so quiet, child. I'm not asleep either."
Deoris sat up, hugging her lanky knees. The thick curls clung heavily to her temples: she tossed them impatiently back. "We're not the only ones awake, either," she said with conviction. "I've been hearing things. Voices, and steps, and, somewhere, singing. No—not singing, chanting. Scary chanting, a long way off, a very long way off."
Domaris looked very young as she sat there in her filmy sleeping garment, limned in sharp patches of black and white by the restless lightning; nor, on this night, did she feel much older than her little sister. "I think I heard it, too."
"Like this." Deoris hummed a thread of melody, in a whisper.
Domaris shuddered. "Don't! Deoris—where did you hear that chanting?"
"I don't know." Deoris frowned in concentration. "Far away. As if it came from under the earth—or in the sky—no, I'm not even sure whether I heard it or dreamed it." She picked up one of her sister's plaits and began listlessly to unravel it. "There's so much lightning, but no thunder. And when I hear the chanting, the lightning seems to brighten—"
"Deoris, no! That is impossible!"
"Why?" asked Deoris fearlessly. "Singing a note in certain rooms will bring light there; why should it not kindle a different light?"
"Because it is blasphemous, evil, to tamper with nature like that!" A coldness, almost fear, seemed to have clamped about her mind. "There is power in the voice. When you grow older in the Priesthood you will learn of this. But you must not speak of those evil forces!"
Deoris's quick thoughts had flitted elsewhere. "Arvath is jealous, that I may be near you when he may not! Domaris!" Her eyes held merry laughter that bubbled over into sound. "Is that why you wanted me to sleep in your apartments?"
"Perhaps." A faint stain of color etched the older sister's delicate face with crimson.
"Domaris, are you in love with Arvath?"
Domaris turned her eyes from the searching glances of her sister. "I am betrothed to Arvath," she said gravely. "Love will come when we are ready. It is not well to be too eager for life's gifts." She felt sententious, hypocritical, as she mouthed these sentiments; but her tone sobered Deoris. The thought of parting from her sister, even for marriage, filled her with jealousy which was partly jealousy for the children she knew Domaris would have... . All her life she had been Domaris's baby and pet.
As if to avoid that loss, Deoris said imploringly, "Don't ever make me go away from you again!"
Domaris slipped an arm around the meager shoulders. "Never, unless you wish it, little sister," she promised; but she felt troubled by the adoration in the child's voice. "Deoris," she said, squirming her hand beneath the small chin and turning Deoris's face up to hers, "you mustn't idolize me this way, I don't like it."
Deoris did not answer, and Domaris sighed. Deoris was an odd child: mostly reserved and reticent, a few she loved so wildly that it scared Domaris; she seemed to have no moderation in her loves and hates. Domaris wondered: Did I do that? Did I let her idolize me so irrationally when she was a baby?
Their mother had died when Deoris was born. The eight-year-old Domaris had resolved, on that night, that her newborn sister would never miss a mother's care. Deoris's nurse had tried to enforce some moderation in this, but when Deoris was weaned, her influence was ended: the two were inseparable. For Domaris, her baby sister replaced the dolls Domaris had that day discarded. Even when Domaris grew older, and had lessons, and later duties in the world of the Temple, Deoris tagged continually at her heels. They had never been parted for a single day until Domaris had entered the House of the Twelve.
Domaris had been only thirteen when she had been betrothed to Arvath of Alkonath. He also was an Acolyte: the one of the Twelve whose Sign of the Heavens was opposite to and congenial to her own. She had always accepted the fact that one day she would marry Arvath, just as she accepted the rising and setting of the sun—and it affected her just about as much. Domaris really had not the slightest idea that she was a beautiful woman. The Priests among whom she had been fostered all treated her with the same, casual, intimate affection; only Arvath had ever sought a closer bond. To this, Domaris reacted with mixed emotions. Arvath's own youth and love of life appealed to her; but real love, or even conscious desire, there was none. Too honest to pretend an acquiescence she did not feel, she was too kind to repulse him utterly, and too innocent to seek another lover. Arvath was a problem which, at times, occupied her attention, but without gravely troubling it.
She sat, silent, beside Deoris, vaguely disturbed. Lightning flickered and glimmered raggedly like the phrases of a broken chant, and a coldness whispered through the air.
A long shiver ripped through Domaris then, and she clung to her sister, shuddering in the sudden, icy grip of fear. "Domaris, what is it, what is it?" Deoris wailed. Domaris's breath was coming in gasps, and her fingers bit sharply into the child's shoulder.
"I don't ... I wish I knew," she breathed in terror. Suddenly, with deliberate effort, she recovered herself. Rajasta's teaching was in her mind, and she tried to apply it.
"Deoris, no force of evil can harm us unless we permit it. Lie down—" She set the example, then reached in the darkness for her sister's hands. "Now, we'll say the prayer we used to say when we were little children, and go to sleep." Despite her calm voice and reassuring words, Domaris clasped the little cold fingers in her own firm ones a little too tightly. This was the Night of Nadir, when all the forces of the earth were loosed, good and evil alike, in balance, for all men to take as they would.