Crystal Warrior: Through All Eternity (Atlantean Crystal Saga Book 1) (55 page)

As daylight crept over the frozen city people streamed out along the harbor road to the peninsula and the crowd swelled to many times what it had been during the protest. The peninsula and the road leading to it was crowded with people all straining to see the entrance to the Star Path.

The Dawn Latreia floated above the harbor from each of the twelve sacred points about the city, immediately followed by the longhorn watch-call from the highest point of Castle Crags. As the last resonance faded on the air, Barmond erupted from the pyramid with Taur striding more slowly behind him.

A big dark man, Barmond was even blacker with anger, and he leapt once more to the base of the statue amid loud cheers of acclamation.

‘Your King is a sorcerer!’ he roared. ‘There was no door and yet I couldn't leave the pyramid until he suggested we should! I, Barmond, am no priest but I saw amazing visions in that infernal place! Thus I know he managed to send me out of my body! He nearly killed me and it was only my own immense strength that brought my spirit back into my body! If it wasn't for my own strength I'd be dead in that place!’

The silence of understanding rippled with the sudden briskness of a breeze over the crowd. Barmond waited for the affirmations of the crowd, his face angry and baffled.

A lone voice called from somewhere near the front, ‘So the King spoke true then!’

A wave of questioning and answering, muttering and murmuring rolled through the crowd from front to back.

Taur leapt to another plinth and shouted, ‘I thank Barmond for helping me prove nothing can happen to you in the Star Path that you don't will for yourself!’

The people didn't just drift away. They ran, laughing and dancing as if a great cloud had lifted from every horizon. Now and again some would turn to gaze back at the King with varied expressions from fear to awe.

Taur raised his arm to the Captain of the Guard to send the royal reica bearers and looking back observed Barmond's back melting swiftly into the crowd. Turning to Dogon and Loganda he said, ‘I think you can safely telondem the energy circles in the Temples and let them know all is well and they may cease generating now.’

With a thankful glance after the vanishing crowds both went silent to make their connections.

‘How do you feel?’ he asked, turning to Gynevra, his brow creased with concern.

‘Hungry!’ she laughed.

Loganda and Dogon, messages sent, agreed. Food was their most pressing need.

‘We'll get Bono to cook us rashers of ham with eggs and fried oatcakes.’

‘And honey,’ Gynevra added.

With a laugh Taur agreed.

‘And honey for my Queen.’

Over a delicious meal the King insisted the others talk first of how the energy had sustained and warmed them.

Gynevra said, ‘I feel as if I've had a good night's sleep and I never noticed the cold.’

Loganda agreed and Dogon smiled in his quiet way from one to the other, then said, ‘It was a wonderful experience to work the energy with such an enlightened group of colleagues. This has probably been an important day for all of us. Many of the people will see us as more Gods than people after this, I suspect, which in some ways I think, will make our lives a little easier. Now Taur, we're all very keen to hear of your night in the pyramid with the villainous Barmond.’

‘I suspect Barmond is a very good example of why the Ramegram should be abolished. We Dragons seem to have a certain volatility that can lead to killing the messenger before asking what he came for,’ he said, slanting a wry smile toward Gynevra. ‘Some more so than others and it's not a desirable trait to be breeding into the future of our society.’

He paused to spoon honey onto an oatcake. They were dining in their private rooms. Ugo gurgled in a nest of clagrenon on the floor, Qerlim lay at Gynevra's feet and Difleer, Foab and Pog were on hand to serve their every need.

‘He was pewking-scared when I forced him to walk into the pyramid without even touching him.’ Suddenly he fixed Dogon with a green glare. ‘I well remember the day you immobilized me with a force field in Trephysia. I know how helpless he felt. When I locked him in without a door he was inclined to run mad so I calmed him down with the energy. We sat opposite one another in the Circle of Life and I told him I was going to concentrate on causing his death and asked him if he wanted to die. His response was quite volatile—as we've already mentioned. When he ran out of oaths and curses I told him he could either concentrate on causing my death or on preventing me causing his—because if he was right and I was wrong, he would die. I suggested he think about whether he was prepared to sacrifice his life to prove a point.’

Dogon interrupted to ask gently, ‘Had you thought what could've happened if he'd concentrated on causing your death? By the natural universal law he would've been more in danger of causing his own death than yours. When you consider that whatever energy you project out into the universe comes back to you threefold and that the energy of the pyramid amplifies the natural law manyfold, you were taking a grave risk of causing exactly that which you sought to disprove.’

‘It was a bit of a gamble but I was pretty certain I was safe. He said quite forcefully he was going to concentrate on causing my death but I knew he lied. He concentrated very hard on staying alive. The energy in that place is such even the uninitiated can go astral travelling. He was quite sure I'd managed to get him out of his body!

‘Actually, I went off on the most amazing journey of my own and didn't come back until the first note of the longhorn sounded from Castle Crags. He was sitting staring at me with eyes like a startled cat's. I don't think we'll have any more trouble from Lord Barmond.’

From her seat opposite him at the round table, Gynevra fixed her gaze on him. He hadn't told all.

‘Where did you go?’

‘Later, alara, 'tis for you alone.’

It was almost another half hour before Dogon and Loganda left and Gynevra, to stall her impatience, played on the floor with her son. He was a beautiful child with deep golden skin, his father's green eyes, his mother's golden hair and his lungs, as many were won't to comment, those of a healthy young Bull scion.

As soon as their guests were gone, Taur leapt from the table and swung his son high in the air. The child squealed with delight. Gynevra scrambled to her feet.

‘Tell me,’ she demanded.

‘Impatient witch,’ he laughed and kissed the end of her nose, ‘but I have to admit I'm no less impatient to tell you.—Diffie, take this little monster to his great-Movuon if he won't settle. I'm taking the Queen out on the cliffs a while.’

Handing the child to Difleer he called Pog to fetch their cloaks. There was always a breeze on the cliffs, even on still days, and today there would be ice in it.

Taking a path that had come to be known as the King's Trail for no one else could use it, they by-passed the Council Chamber and came out on the cliffs above Needle Point, where tall, sharp needles of rock rose up from cliffs jutting into the sea. Since they were going to their special place where the world couldn't follow and rarely thought to look, Gynevra knew what he had to share with her was special—but she'd known that when he'd first mentioned it. She was happy to run to keep up with his long impatient stride. The breeze whipped at her cloak and nipped with icy treachery at her cheeks.

‘Winter's nearly here,’ she commented.

‘Aye, it's cold enough but I don't get a feeling of snow in the air yet. The snows could be late this year.’

‘Is that good or bad?’

‘Depends how long they last.’

At last they came to the top of the cliff and the whole of the northern ocean lay before them, swelling and rolling ceaselessly toward the shore. Setting down with their faces to the wind they took a moment, as always, to breathe the scent of the ocean, to absorb the energy, and appreciate the infinity of it. In this place above any other there was a sense of oneness, with the elements, with the Gods, with all they were and could be, and with each other.

Taur slipped an arm round Gynevra and drew her close. Then he began to talk and she didn't interrupt for what he told her first stole her breath.

‘I saw Go’,’ he said, and felt her body tremble against him. He firmed his grip. ‘I went into this Temple. The floor was a mosaic of every kind of gemstone you could think of—flowers and trees and hills and rivers. It was beautiful. The roof was more of the same and the columns holding it up were clear quartz shot through with rainbows. When I stepped into this place, there was Go’ as if he'd been waiting for me.

‘I felt a great love and understanding, just like in old times, before the Rafid Games where he fell on my sword. He said we Paggi oafs had a lot to learn about love when we get where he is and he was glad to see I'd started already. He looked just like he used to when I first joined the army. He was my idol then, you know. Our estrangement later hurt me deeply though in my Paggi way I tried not to show it.’

He sighed and stopped talking for a moment to stare out to sea. Gynevra slipped her arms round his body and hung on tight. Drawing in a deep breath, he continued.

‘He asked my forgiveness and then—imagine this! Two Paggi oafs hugging one another and crying together!’

He dropped his chin onto his chest.

Gynevra leaned back and brushed the hair from his face with gentle hands. ‘I can, and it's wonderful,’ she whispered.

Catching her hands in his and holding them against his heart, he said, ‘He gave me a special message for you.’

Her eyes widened, her lips quivered but she said nothing.

‘He said he was glad I'd given you happiness as he'd never been able to do and asked you to forgive him for all he became in his life with you and for all the hurt and pain he inflicted upon you. He said to tell you Solon is fine there with Meri and Hadrian and himself and that he grows into a fine young man in the image of his light-sire. He—’

Tears gushed from Gynevra's eyes and a terrible keening cry rose from the back of her throat. Wrapping her rigid body in his arms Taur rocked her against his chest, and to his chagrin tears leaked from his own eyes into her hair.

‘There's more,’ he murmured when at last he felt her relax and quieten.

‘Tell me,’ she pleaded thickly, wiping away her tears. Then she leaned back to look at Taur and her eyes filled again. Gently she brushed the tears from his cheeks. ‘Tell me,’ she whispered again.

‘He took me through the Temple to a beautiful city with the most amazing gardens and fountains everywhere, a place with a feeling of great divinity—and there I met our son.’

They gazed at one another through their tears and gently wiped them from each other's cheeks as they fell.

‘It was just as Go’ said,’ he told her, his eyes glowing with wonder. ‘He grows to look just like me. He placed his hand in mine and the imprint of his fingers burned across my palm. I feel it still.’ He took her hand and pressed it against his own and for a long time they just sat and communed with the essence of the first child they'd made together.

‘I guess the true wonder of it is, Go’ cares for our son. In Spirit he’s the father he never would’ve been in the flesh,’ Taur murmured at last.

Gynevra nodded. ‘I’m so glad they’re all together—and happy.’

In the days that followed Taur had to repeat his account of that spiritual journey many times, Gynevra always pressing him for more details and with each telling he felt serenity deepen around his Golden One. At last he sensed a profound peacefulness in her and he would catch her looking at Ugo and smiling with a faraway look on her face.

Winter never came. There were days of hard frosts but always a brilliant sunny day to follow with the frost gone by midday. There were days of bitter sleety rain showers when no one ventured outdoors unless they had to and days when the wind blew with a ceaseless high-pitched whine round the clifftops and was cold enough to freeze exposed skin.

But not a flake of snow fell. Never in living memory or even in historical record had there been a winter without snow in Nyalda. It brought a sense of unease, a sense of waiting. Even after the time of winter was long past and spring had brightened the city with bloom and blossom, the waiting went on though none knew what was awaited.

King and Queen performed as Rafid and Adonai in the Spring Fertility Festival and there was an easing of the general tension when it was known the Queen carried a child from the Sacred Joining of the Gods. Spring was warmer than usual and when summer came it was abnormally hot and wet with day after day of violent afternoon thunderstorms.

On Summer Solstice during the Joining of the Gods on the altar, a virgin priestess and a wealthy Son of the Dragon, an earthquake struck the city. It was a short sharp ugly jolt lasting no more than a few seconds but for some it was the last moment of earthly existence. Two died in the city square, killed by falling chunks of stone and timber from the high terraces of Temple Zedanil. Most of the other casualties were in the lower city where a few of the older buildings simply collapsed in on themselves.

The worst of the debris was scarcely cleared away and unsafe buildings shored up, when the weather turned freezing and snow fell. It was only a sprinkling to be sure but snow in midsummer, though not unheard of, was extremely rare and coming after a winter devoid of any and an earthquake that set people fearing for their lives, it caused many to start quavering about retribution of the Gods and talk of coming doom and devastation.