Destiny's Lovers (10 page)

“This is our Chosen Way, Reid, which requires
that the powers of all telepaths must be strictly controlled and
properly used. No deviation from the Chosen Way is ever allowed.
The penalty for those, particularly priests or priestesses, who
break our laws is truly terrible.”

“But what is the benefit in possessing
telepathic ability that one is forbidden to use?” Reid
objected.

“Use of the Gift is not forbidden,” Tamat
told him, “Only its misuse. The honest opening of one mind to
another creates a strong bond in the intimate relations among
family members or dear friends. True mating is impossible without
it, for in the act of love, minds must join as well as bodies. In
these private instances, the Gift is used freely, but by mutual
consent, as the law decrees.

“The Gift is the most important part of our
heritage and is essential to our identity as a people. Our
ancestors were banished from the Jurisdiction because of their
telepathic abilities, and our sense of ourselves as a special
community was forged during the trials of a long wandering before
they found this planet and settled on it. That history, that common
heritage, keeps us bound together now, for as separate individuals
we would be death-condemned outcasts in most of the galaxy.”

“As Janina is an outcast in Ruthlen?” Reid
asked softly.

“Janina, and a few others during our short
time on this planet,” Tamat agreed, with no obvious recognition of
the irony in Reid’s words or her own. “The fates of the
non-telepaths among us have always been sad. I have tried to
protect Janina by keeping her here at the temple. To the folk of
Ruthlen she is an abomination who can never partake of our
community. Were she not under my protection, she would be banished
to die alone in the wilderness or on the sea.”

“Janina is not an abomination!” Reid
exclaimed, angered by this attitude.

“Not to me, Reid, but she is of my blood and
I love her, and that makes all the difference,” Tamat responded.
“Others are not so kindly disposed toward her.”

Tamat’s words left Reid wondering what his
own fate would be without her protection.

On another day, he learned from Tamat that
one aspect of her position was the preserved memory of the original
city of the telepaths and its culture, which was transferred to
each High Priestess by her predecessor. This memory, added to
Tamat’s own inherent telepathic ability and the wisdom and
knowledge she had acquired during nearly a century of life,
provided the basis for her personal power. He also learned that
Sidra and Tamat would soon link their minds, during which time
Tamat would transfer the ancient memories to Sidra, so that Sidra
could carry on the traditions after Tamat’s death.

“Sidra has developed her telepathic Gift far
beyond anyone else in Ruthlen, except for me,” Tamat said. “That is
as it should be. She will continue to develop her Gift as the years
pass, until one day she will surpass what I now am.”

“Have you no objection to that?” Reid asked.
“Couldn’t someone with such a Gift become dangerous?”

“I assure you, Reid, I am aware of Sidra’s
tendency to love power for its own sake, as I notice you are aware
of it. But she has sworn to uphold the Chosen Way and its laws. I
believe the heavy responsibility or being both High Priestess and
Co-Ruler will cause her to develop a greater concern for others,
along with the knowledge that power is not the only thing that
matters. So it once was with me. So it will be with Sidra.”

Reid was not so sure. He disliked Sidra
because of the haughty and sometimes cruel way she treated Janina,
and because something about her struck him as untrue.

* * * * *

“Janina, you are late again,” Sidra scolded
early one day. She had been waiting by the entrance to the temple
complex and had stopped Janina before she could carry the filled
water jar inside. “Every time it is your turn to bring the Water
from the sacred grove, the rest of us must wait to begin our
morning rituals. You are not only stupid and inconsiderate, you are
incredibly lazy.”

“This is my fault, Sidra.” Osiyar,
accompanied by Reid and the two scholar priests, had come out of
his house in time to see Sidra waiting for Janina and to hear her
verbal attack. “I delayed Janina earlier this morning when I
stopped her to ask about Tamat’s health. Tamat has eaten nothing
for three days, and since yesterday she has seen no one except
Janina. I feared she might be ill. I am surprised that Janina was
able to walk to the grove and back so quickly. I assure you, she
has not been lazy.”

“Questions about Tamat’s health ought to be
addressed to me, Osiyar,” Sidra said spitefully. “This foolish girl
knows nothing. She constantly makes mistakes. You cannot depend on
what she says.”

“Perhaps her errors are caused by her fear of
displeasing you,” Osiyar suggested. “If you treated her more
gently, she might make fewer mistakes.”

“It is not your duty, but mine, to train the
lesser priestesses, Osiyar!” Sidra’s blue eyes held Osiyar’s gaze
for a long moment, until Reid, watching the scene, felt a tingling
along his spine. He was certain Sidra and Osiyar were in telepathic
contact, and he thought from the look on Osiyar’s face that it must
be a contest of two equally determined wills. After a while Sidra
turned her head away. With one of her soft, rippling little laughs
she gestured to Janina.

“Take the Water into the temple at once,” she
said. “The others are waiting for you. As for you scholar-priests,
come with me.” Without another glance for Osiyar, Sidra walked
across the courtyard and entered the temple, followed by the two
young men who were his students.

“Jealousy,” Osiyar said, “is a terrible
thing, a destructive force. I am glad I have never known it.”

“Sidra reminds me of an older sister,” Reid
remarked, “who fears a younger child is her rival for her mother’s
affection.”

“It is so,” Osiyar agreed gravely. “Tamat is
the only person Sidra loves, and so she sees Janina as a
threat.”

“Love does strange things to people.” Reid
was thinking about Janina. He had at first imagined that his strong
feelings for her were the result of exhaustion, of the strangely
beautiful and peaceful sacred grove, and of the aphrodisiacal scent
of the red khata flowers. He had repeatedly tried to tell himself
that he could not really care for an unknown girl, that he had
known more than a few women before and never fallen in love with
any of them. All his excuses and rationalizations were useless each
time he came face to face with Janina. As the days passed, he felt
more and more drawn to her. Just now, he had wanted to protect her
from Sidra’s jealousy, wanted to see the hurt look in her mist-blue
eyes dissolve into laughter. He had never heard Janina laugh. He
wondered what the sound would be like.

“It is best not to love.” Osiyar’s voice
startled Reid, making him wonder if the High Priest had entered his
thoughts without permission. But it seemed Osiyar was talking about
himself. “Because I love no one, I am not tortured by jealousy as
Sidra is. When I am called upon to judge a dispute in the village
or some quarrel between farmers, I am not cursed by affection for
one side or the other. I can make an impartial decision. Because of
that ability, I am respected by all in Ruthlen.”

“Surely you loved your parents,” Reid
objected, recalling his own love-filled childhood.

“I do not remember them. They died when I was
young, of an illness that suddenly swept through Ruthlen, killing
many. On the day I was born I was dedicated to the temple, so when
my parents died, Tamat took me in and gave me to the last High
Priest to raise.” Osiyar dismissed his youth with a quick movement
of one hand, letting Reid understand it was not to be discussed
again. “I hold Tamat in reverence, but no one else. Tamat has been
a remarkable High Priestess.”

“And Sidra?” Reid asked, thinking again of
Janina and the loveless future she faced. “What kind of High
Priestess will Sidra be?”

Osiyar’s handsome face hardened. Reid thought
at first that the man was angry with him, but Osiyar’s tone of
voice did not change.

“Sidra is very different from Tamat,” Osiyar
said. “Sidra has…other attributes that will make her a powerful
High Priestess. When her day comes to reign, I shall be her willing
Co-Ruler, as I have been Tamat’s. Sidra and I are well
matched.”

Reid said no more. While he liked Osiyar in
spite of his apparent emotional coldness, Reid also felt sorry for
him, believing his loyalty was torn between Tamat and Sidra in a
way Reid could not fully comprehend.

Regardless of his claim to love no one,
Osiyar treated the people of Ruthlen with unfailing kindness,
employing his healing skills whenever needed, and, as far as Reid
could tell, judging all disputes with scrupulous fairness. He
treated Janina fairly, too, never scolding her as Sidra did, and
for that fairness Reid liked him even better.

Each day Reid walked into the village with
Osiyar and at least one of the two scholar-priests. There Osiyar
dealt with any problems the villagers were having, while Reid and
the scholars listened in order to learn from him. Always on these
occasions, Reid could feel the women staring at him, assessing him.
He was aware that the villagers had been informed of Tamat’s plan
for him. They seemed to accept it. The men, from whom he might have
expected jealousy, were guarded and a bit brusque with him when he
spoke to them, but they were not openly hostile.

“Your cousin and your friend are safe,” Tamat
said to Reid one day when they were alone.

“Are you certain of that?” he asked without
thinking, then knew it was a foolish question.

“I would not tell you an untruth, Reid,” the
High Priestess said calmly, with no sign that she had taken
offense. “While Commander Tank slept, I implanted in his mind the
information he needed to find the ones you call Herne and Alla. The
following day, we modified the blanking shield enough to allow him
access to them without revealing our location.”

“If you touched Tank’s mind, you must know he
would bring no harm to your people,” Reid said. “Surely now you
will let them come here, or let me go.”

“For your sake, I regret that is impossible,”
Tamat told him. “You will remain with us, Reid.”

“He won’t stop searching for me.”

“But he has,” Tamat said. “Tarik and his
wife, Narisa, both believe firmly that you are dead. I pity the
sorrow they feel, but it was necessary to make them believe it is
so in order to protect Ruthlen. They will search for you no
more.”

Reid stared at her, thinking of Alla and the
grief she must be enduring for his sake, believing him dead. Poor
Alla.

Just then, Janina came into the small private
room where he and Tamat were. She bore a tray of fruit and the hot
herbal brew they called dhia, for Tamat’s midday meal. Reid
promptly forgot his cousin in the pleasure of looking at Janina. He
was so strongly attracted to her that he wondered how he could
avoid going to her and taking her into his arms. He controlled
himself only because he did not want to cause trouble for her. He
told himself for the thousandth time that she was sworn as a virgin
priestess, but it made no difference in how he felt.

* * * * *

While the personality of the High Priest
allowed for little warmth, the tentative friendship between Reid
and Osiyar grew stronger as Osiyar regularly defended Janina
against Sidra’s verbal attacks. Reid thought Osiyar saw Janina as a
combination of pupil and distant niece or cousin. This idea was not
at all unreasonable, since the population of Ruthlen was so small
that after six centuries everyone was related in some way to
everyone else.

Reid had several times answered Osiyar’s
questions about the way he had gained access to the sacred grove,
and about his initial meeting with Janina. He never mentioned that
they had almost made love, but one day Reid did speak of the
presence he had sensed in the grove.

“An entity with feelings and intelligence,”
Reid said, trying to describe an incident for which words were
inadequate.

“Definitely, something is there,” Osiyar
agreed. “As a man, I am not permitted to enter the grove, but Tamat
has told me of a presence we do not understand. Perhaps it is the
spirit of the grove itself, or it might be the essence of this
world.”

“Has anyone ever considered investigating
it?” Reid asked, intrigued. “There are simple, practical tests that
might be conducted, even by the lesser priestesses.”

“A sense of mystery is important to the
beauty of life,” Osiyar responded, shaking his head at Reid’s
suggestion. “It is not necessary to examine and record everything
that exists, and in the case of the sacred grove the attempt would
be well beyond the capability of even the most adept telepath. Like
the far reaches of the stars, or the depths of the sea, the
presence that exists in the sacred grove will remain an eternal
mystery to us, adding beauty and unexplainable joy to our ordinary
lives.”

“Like a lovely woman?” Reid asked, catching
sight of Sidra on her way to the temple with Janina. Osiyar
followed the direction of his glance.

“That is a more mundane mystery,” he said.
“But, like the greater mystery, it is best left unpenetrated.”

Reid stared at him, wondering if the usually
serious High Priest had just made a joke. Osiyar looked back at him
with a bland expression, and Reid dismissed the idea. But he
remained puzzled by the words.

“Accept it,” Osiyar said softly, his eyes
returning to Sidra. “Simply enjoy what is beyond explanation. It is
the way of Ruthlen. While you live here, make it your way,
too.”

With his own sight now upon Janina’s slim
figure, Reid’s only answer was a shrug. There was certainly no
explanation for what he felt about her. He thought perhaps Osiyar
was right, and wiser than Reid could admit.