Crystal Warrior: Through All Eternity (Atlantean Crystal Saga Book 1) (17 page)

‘It's—so—beautiful,’ Gynevra snuffled against her shoulder, then pushing herself away, dashed an embarrassed hand across her eyes. ‘Where did you get it?’

‘The funniest little dwarf person I've ever seen sent Old Brad the Gardener to fetch you to meet him under the Horse Bridge. I couldn't find you, so I went. He said his master, the ‘Phenomenal Bull of Nyalda’—his words not mine—sent this token for the Princess Gynevra of Poseidonia. He was very insistent it was for you and not Phree, and I had to memorize this message—which I had to vow to deliver only to you! First there was a promise. ‘My Master, King Cadal Isidor II of Nyalda vows to cross vast oceans should the Princess Gynevra have need of his services to sire her children’. And then a rhyme—‘A bull of black obsidian bold for the Princess of the Dawn with eyes of gold’'.’

For a long space of time Gynevra couldn't speak. Then she whispered shakily, ‘Cloaba! I wish he hadn't done that.’

‘It's necessary after a joining, Gyn'a. You're supposed to wear his signature stone at least until you're certain you're not pregnant, and if you are, you're supposed to wear it till the child is born and then give it to them. So they'll know who sired them.’

Gynevra stared for a long silent moment at the tiny creature that looked real enough one could imagine at any moment it would paw the ground.

‘I'm not pregnant. I haven't been to the Temple to have my fertility crystal re-programmed—and he knew that.’

‘If he knew then he wasn't required to give the token. That he has is a symbol of something beyond merely joining to sire a child. He knew you'd always keep that token and it's much more than a nicely shaped and polished piece of stone such as he gave Phree. I didn't mean to make you sad, Gyn'a,’ Mery said, gently twining her fingers into her sister's. ‘Were you already lovers—before?’

Gynevra shook her head.

‘I'd only ever seen him at the Dragon Festivals before—before yesterday.’

‘So—when?’ Mery asked, genuinely perplexed.

Gynevra caressed the little bull between thumb and forefinger and knew she loved it already. Knew too, there was much that after all, she didn't dare share even with Meryan.

Drawing in a deep uneven breath, she said, ‘This morning. He came to me as I bathed in the grotto under the Causeway.’

‘This morning! How could he? He'd already—seven times—Great Cronos!—and how did he find you there?’

‘Please don't ask me any more,’ Gynevra whispered, slipping her hand from Meryan's grasp, and closing it over the precious black jewel in her palm. ‘Just know he did find me and that—my Lady Mother probably decided to leave nothing to chance and brewed an extra strong nuptial nectar.’

Rising and walking agitatedly across to the spring, she trailed her fingers in its crystalline depths.

‘Mery,’ she said, looking at her sister over her shoulder, ‘How will you feel if Hadan is contracted to sire someone else’s child? He's a Son of the Dragon. It could happen.’

‘Men who have sacred partners aren't contracted as often as others. Nor is Hadan as beautiful as Gotham or as well built as Taur.’

‘But he's always here because he's a teacher and not a soldier so it's quite possible it could happen. You'd have to witness him—when—you'd have to witness him join with other women. Will that upset you?’

‘Gyn'a, that's the whole purpose of it. If I'm there as a witness it's nothing more than a mechanical sowing of the seed, just like planting the harvest in the fields. You have to admit old Isidor's plan to re-populate our country with beautiful, intelligent people is working. Look at the huge strides in technology we've made in the last fifty years and nearly all of it instigated by his off-spring.’

‘I know all that,’ Gynevra said, sitting back on the bench beside Meryan. ‘But I don't believe I could do it! I love Phryne yet when I think of him—joining with her, I want to kill her! Oh Hyades! This is awful,’ she whispered, dropping her head onto her hands. ‘The worst is now I've experienced joining with a real man I'm more afraid than ever I'll not be satisfied with the occasional ritual joining on the altar! It was magnificent and I want it again. Often!’

Gynevra looked up into Meryan's dancing eyes.

‘It's not funny, Mery!’ she cried. ‘You know I was considering petitioning my father to be allowed to take a sacred partner and now—now I don't know what to do! Supposing he was contracted for a siring and in the middle of it—I went crazy—and—oh, can't you see, it'd be awful!’

Meryan chortled.

‘I can just see you trying to haul him naked off someone like the Lady Manyda! It'd be better than a stage drama. Are you going to unite with King Cadal Isidor?’

‘Of course not! He sails with the army tomorrow and if he was in Atlantis he'd be so busy fulfilling all his contracts he'd not have time for a sacred partner.’

‘Mmm, you do have a problem. Your skin's gone a blotchy red and your eyes are flashing fire just thinking about it. It's an unhealthy emotion called jealousy, Gyn'a, usually manifested by primitive peoples in uncivilized countries,’ Meryan offered helpfully.

‘I know all that, Mery,’ Gynevra snapped. ‘So what are my options? None. I get to become a
highly
initiated and
highly
frustrated,
High
Priestess! Who gets to mate a few times a year—
in public
—if she's lucky! Great!’

‘You could become a Temple delilah, like Lauriana.’

‘Until I lose my looks and then what?’

‘Sorry,’ Meryan said quickly, ‘I'll try and be serious. People generally try to contract a man to sire their children who doesn't have a sacred partner. It may not be a problem.’

Gynevra snorted.

‘Do you seriously believe the existence of a sacred partner would deter women from contracting the greatest Warrior Lord in the whole country?’

‘Probably not,’ Meryan conceded. ‘But how would you feel watching, say, Prince Gotham join with someone else?’

Gynevra sat very still staring down at the little black bull in her hand. Suddenly she slipped its thread over her head and threw her arms round Meryan.

‘You're a genius!’ she sighed. ‘Of course it wouldn't worry me. It's just—Taur.’

‘And you're not going to join with him anyway.’

‘No, I'm not, am I?’ Gynevra got up and moved restlessly about the courtyard. ‘I haven't even decided if I really want to unite with anyone yet, but I will have to get my thinking straight soon.—Oh Mery,’ she murmured, coming back to her sister and clasping her hands. ‘It's so different when you're able to connect with a man, to—to touch and arouse, to be touched and aroused. It's nothing like in ritual. You're going to enjoy joining with Hadan!’

‘I hope so,’ Meryan responded a little soberly. ‘You'd better not let Phree see your wee bull. Last night was very important to her. Though you'd better wear him if you go to petition our father.’

Gynevra frowned and sat back on her heels at Meryan's feet.

‘My Lady Movuon will be very unhappy with me. I know she already sees me as her successor someday.—But it's not as if I'm her only daughter! There is Alienor.’

Meryan looked solemn. The prophecy of Electra was a well-known fact in Atlantis. Not long before her death Ianthe's grandmother had warned should there be none of her bloodline to take up the position of Archinus of Poseidonia then would Atlantis disappear forever.

‘Ianthe will be furious,’ Meryan contended.

‘But not surprised, I think,’ Gynevra said, rising to her feet and putting aside the worrying thought. ‘I was going over to check on Gotham, but I'd better pot this salve now. You could look in and take a report back to Phree.’

When Gynevra stopped by later to check on the Prince, High Priestess Allida sat at the watch station outside the lapis recovery room.

‘He's eaten a little, drunk plenty, his color's good, and he's sleeping,’ she reported. ‘You look as if you could do with some of the same.’

‘I'm just heading off to my room now,’ Gynevra admitted. ‘But I wanted to check how he was first.’

‘He's doing all right. I'll get him up to walk a little when he wakes. So go and have a sleep and stop worrying. Or did you just want to have another look at a beautiful man?’

Gynevra grinned at the older woman.

‘He is beautiful, isn't he? In a very masculine sort of way.’

‘Mmm. A perfect sculpture wrought in gold. The old king would've been proud of that one. Same build and coloring.—He sired your sister, Alienor, and I've seen several others in the Hall of Young People who wear the citrine. He sires beautiful children. But then all the Dragon's spawn are beautiful—and clever. Though I sometimes wonder if some of them aren't a bit too clever.’

‘Why do you say that?’ Gynevra asked, sensing a diversion and settling herself more comfortably on the corner of the watch table. Allida was a fund of information on many topics usually considered unsuitable for the ears of the younger initiates and easily lured into sharing her knowledge.

‘It's rumored the King's brother, your uncle Usuf, is creating a fire crystal in Fyr Trephyr more powerful than any yet dreamed of. He'd have us believe it's to channel solar energy to boost the earth grid weakened by the Dorian explosion. No one can understand why King Ahron allows it.’

‘You don't believe it's for what he says it's for?’

‘No, I don't,’ Allida said forthrightly, ‘and even if it's the truth that's exactly what they were doing at Temple Toranil when the whole city of Fyr Doryr was destroyed and thousands of souls from the Province of Dorsaal with it. The crystal they were creating then was only a fraction of the size this one is said to be. When it exploded it created a fault-line spawning the Dorian Mountains on the plains where once the food of the nation was grown—and turned the Province of Trephysia into an ash-pit.’

‘Only one crystal caused that? I thought it must've been several.’

‘Just one,’ Allida confirmed.

Gynevra felt a chill thread of worry for Meryan, and asked, ‘Have you ever been to Fyr Trephyr?’

Allida let the exquisite amber and leather belt she was plaiting fall idle in her lap and shook her head. ‘You can only get there by sea now and it takes a full tonn. Ten days of seasickness would kill me. And if it didn't, having to live enclosed by glass would.’

‘I find it hard to understand that only one crystal could cause so much devastation,’ Gynevra said.

‘There are many theories about why it happened like it did. Electra always said when the big power crystals explode they don't shatter as the science-priests would have us believe. She maintained they split cleanly along the axes and the directional force of the energy released implodes the sections deep into the Earth's crust. Her theory was if the implosion occurred on an existing fault-line as in Fyr Doryr, the uncontrolled energy from the four separate sections, each one of which is able to generate the energy mass of the original crystal, would be continuously feeding chaos into the belly of the Earth Mother. The Mother can only absorb so much chaotic energy and when the concentration becomes too much for her, up comes another volcano. Little by little since the Dorian explosion, the belly of the Earth has been splitting open. There have been many wild notions about how to heal the Mother but nothing that works. The priests argue that Electra was an old woman with no scientific knowledge or training. So her theories have been ignored.

‘In the eighty years since that disaster ten volcanoes have erupted through the Valley of Doryr, cutting the country in half and constantly showering what's left of Trephysia with poisonous ash. There've been two major earthquakes in the northwest and the eruption of Mt. Argos causing a huge area of the Deria Peninsula to disappear under the sea with the loss of many more souls. Many believe those two disasters were also triggered by the weakening of the surface crust and chaotic energy imploding into the core. The nation has struggled to feed itself since those days and the grief and suffering is incalculable. Yet what do they do?’ she demanded of Gynevra. Drawing an angry breath she continued without waiting for a reply. ‘They go on creating bigger and bigger crystals. Now it's said they create a fire crystal with the potential to destroy the entire country, yet still—’

Allida's voice faded into the distance and a pungent sulphurous fog swirled through Gynevra's head. Her body felt heavy and languorous and when she tried to wipe her hand across her eyes to clear the vision she had to fight to move her arm through the clinging amorphous mass. Then she floated free, a shimmering, dancing play of light in the dark atmosphere, held close in the powerful and protective embrace of a being as luminous as herself.

Far below, the earth convulsed and burned.

‘Gynevra! Gynevra! Are you all right?’

The ghastly miasma faded and Gynevra became aware of Allida shaking her arm and urgently calling her name.

‘Gyn'a! For goodness sake, why didn't you tell me to stop babbling? You're totally exhausted.—Nyd!’

The giant servitor appeared from a side room in response to Allida's call.

‘Take Lady Gynevra to her room, please.’

‘Sure thing, Lady Allida,’ he said with a beatific smile. Lifting Gynevra as if she were no more than a child, he carried her out of the Healing Temple, through the gardens and along the cool stone passageways of the College of Priestesses to her room. There he laid her gently on the soft mattress of her couch and covered her with a bright woven rug.