Destiny's Lovers (3 page)

The waterfall was a muted rumbling in the
background before he located what he sought, a section of rock face
rough enough to offer foot and hand holds. It offered even more,
for as he tilted his head back to look upward, he saw a narrow gap
in the rock, a shelf backed by a cleft that looked just big enough
for a man to fit into. He could climb to it, use his communicator
to call for help, and then take shelter in the cleft until the
shuttlecraft arrived.

He began to climb. It was hard work. The sun
was high overhead and mercilessly hot. Reid was worn out by the
lack of food and sleep, and his hands were already torn and
bleeding from his descent into the ravine. Drugged by fatigue, he
grew careless. He slipped, scraped his cheek against the rock, and
tore two fingernails to the quick. Worse, he tore his treksuit. The
strong fabric saved his life when a waist pocket caught on a
jutting rock and stopped him from an almost certain fall, but he
heard the fabric rip. A moment later, as he scrambled to get better
hand and footholds, he heard something bounce against stone, then
strike a second time and shatter before falling earthward.

He did not have to check to know what it was.
The communicator, his last hope of summoning help, was gone. He
clung to the cliff in despair, spread out upon the rocks like some
bizarre human sacrifice clad in fluorescent orange. He was too weak
by now to curse or weep.

He knew he had only two choices. He could
release his grip on the slippery rocks, lean backward just a
little, and follow his communicator into the green denseness below
and be done with it. Or he could pull himself together, continue to
climb, and try to reach the niche he had seen from below. Once
there he could rest and think what to do next.

Reid pondered those two choices for long,
agonizing moments. The eerie quality of the last few days impressed
itself upon him again, along with the recognition of how strange
and unnatural it was that he, a man in vigorous, reasonably happy
youth, should think with pleasure and relief about dying. He knew
something was wrong, something was happening to his mind, yet
during those few moments when he clutched at the slippery surface
of the cliff, he, who loved life, almost succumbed to the
temptation to give up, to end everything. He was so incredibly
tired, and it would be so easy ... so easy…The lure was seductive
beyond all resistance.

“Beloved.”

Just as Reid began to allow the fingers of
one hand to loosen their hold on the rock, a familiar soft voice
sounded in his ear. Then, softer still, and now a murmuring inside
his head, the voice came again. “Beloved…come to me ... I will
help…come.”

Somehow, he knew not how, the choice of
living or dying had been made for him, and in some deep recess of
his mind he gave thanks to the possessor of that gentle, insistent
voice. He did not really want to die, not before he had discovered
what lay ahead once he was off that star-blasted cliff and far away
from the abnormally dense forest. He wanted to find the owner of
the voice that had saved him.

Gathering his last reserves of strength, he
began to climb again. He went upward so slowly, so painfully, that
when he finally reached the cleft in the rock, he had to crawl into
the cool shade and lie down for a while before he fully realized
where he was.

He found himself face down on crumbled dead
leaves in what was not a niche at all, but a tunnel leading back
into the cliff. There was air blowing through it, sending the dead
leaves scurrying along the stone floor, a breeze that echoed a
woman’s whisper.

“Beloved…come…”

He saw a dim light far ahead. Wearily, Reid
dragged himself to his knees and began to crawl deeper into the
tunnel.

* * * * *

Janina lay on her bed in her room in the
temple, staring at the ceiling and trying to recall what she had
just dreamed. She remembered a face, dark and filled with pain,
seen for the second time. She had tried to touch him, to tell him
not to worry, that she would help him. She thought she had asked
him to help her, too, but she could not remember now what she had
wanted him to do for her. When she tried to think about it, the
dream faded away completely. Her feeling of loss was so strong that
she wanted to cry. She told herself her depression was one of the
after-effects of Tamat’s herbal potion, which had probably also
caused her strange dream.

After her Test, she had slept for most of the
day. When she wakened near evening, Tamat told her all that had
happened and the decision that had been made about her position at
the temple. Sidra would rule after Tamat - Sidra who disliked
Janina - together with Osiyar, who loved no one. Her life would be
in their hands. Janina did not really care about not being High
Priestess. She had never wanted that burden. What distressed her
was the knowledge that she had failed Tamat.

She told no one, not even Tamat, that she
remembered everything. She did not quite know why she kept silence,
except for a desire not to hurt Tamat any more than she already
had. She knew that a true priestess would not have remembered what
happened while she was in a potion-induced trance.

She thought again about the man she had seen.
She could not get his unusual face out of her mind. She felt as
though she had known that stranger for all of her life, and yet she
had never met anyone who looked the least bit like him. No one in
Ruthlen had dark, curly hair or a large, slightly hooked nose. Nor
had she ever wanted to put her arms around any man who lived in the
village or the surrounding farmlands.

Sighing over all the unanswered questions
that troubled her, Janina rolled out of her low bed and went to the
bathing room to perform her morning ablutions. Then, dressed in the
loose, untrimmed white robe of a scholar priestess, she entered
Tamat’s audience chamber.

Sidra and Osiyar were there before her, both
of them facing Tamat. Their words to the elderly High Priestess
sounded to Janina like an attack.

“What are we to do about her prophecy?”
Osiyar demanded. “We all know it must be true, though we followed
your command and did not touch her mind during the Test. We could
have helped her, you know. It is allowed.”

“You surprise me, Osiyar,” Tamat replied with
a touch of dry humor in her voice. “I did not know you cared about
Janina’s welfare. She had to do it alone. It was the only way to
make the Test a true one.”

“What of this dark man she saw?” Sidra asked,
shivering. “Is he a Cetan? Does the prophecy mean they will attack
us again?”

“He’s not a Cetan,” Janina answered her,
advancing into the room. Her intent in speaking had been to
reassure Tamat, but when Sidra and Osiyar swung toward her with
puzzled faces, she realized her error. She wasn’t supposed to
remember what she had seen. “From what Tamat has described to me of
my prophecy, it was not violence I foresaw. Therefore, the man
cannot be Cetan.”

“Just so.” Tamat looked relieved. “We can’t
know if the man is friend or foe until he comes here.”

“But if he will change everything,” Sidra
insisted, “then we ought to prevent him from coming. We need to
strengthen the blanking shield. Let us join our power, Tamat, you
and Osiyar and I. We will search for his mind, too. Once we hold
him in thrall, we can destroy him or send him elsewhere.”

“Later. I will speak with Janina now.” Tamat
dismissed Sidra and Osiyar with a slight gesture of one hand.

“Dear Janina,” Sidra said in her khata-sweet
voice, “when Tamat has finished with you, remember it is your turn
today to visit the pool in the mountain and bring us the Water. I
know you won’t mind, as you are so fond of the grove.” She went out
with a smile in Tamat’s direction.

“I sometimes wish,” Tamat said, “that we were
not bound so tightly by the laws our ancestors laid down for
telepaths, to control the Gift and preserve the privacy of each
person. I would dearly love to steal deep into the minds of those
two.”

“They would know at once what you were
doing,” Janina said, more than a little shocked at Tamat’s
suggestion. Prying into the minds of fellow telepaths was strictly
forbidden except in dire emergencies.

“I think that in her heart of hearts,” Tamat
went on, “Sidra is not so chaste as she would have us believe.”

“She would never break her vow,” Janina
whispered, horrified at the idea.

“She would not,” Tamat agreed. “Not since my
great-grandmother’s day has any priestess willingly surrendered her
body to a man. You will recall from your studies that the High
Priestess Sanala was soon discovered in her lustful perfidy. When
the time came for the Sacred Mind-Linking, she could not hide what
she had done, so she was overthrown and set adrift. That was when
my great-grandmother’s older sister became High Priestess, and the
honor has remained in our family ever since.”

“Until this day.” Janina spoke the last words
of the story, knowing them by heart. She had heard the tale many
times.

“The honor would have ended with you in any
case,” Tamat said, making light of a sorrow Janina knew hurt her
deeply. “Since your parents left no younger daughter to marry and
bear future priestesses, you would have been the last Tamat to hold
the position. Sidra will be no worse than many High Priestesses we
have had in the last six hundred years.

“My child, are you well today?” Tamat changed
the subject abruptly. “The potion you drank can have unpleasant
aftereffects, but it was necessary to give it to you.”

“I’m so sorry I failed you.” Janina’s
silver-blue eyes were filled with tears. “I wish I could be
everything you wanted me to be.”

“Hush. I love you no matter what you are, or
are not.” Tamat’s frail hands cupped Janina’s face. “You have never
failed in love or respect toward me. We cannot change what is. You
can still live a safe and useful life here in the temple
compound.”

They both knew that was true only so long as
Tamat lived. No one could foretell what would happen afterward,
under Sidra and Osiyar’s rule.

“Go,” Tamat said, kissing Janina on the cheek
in a rare gesture of affection. “Bring us this day’s Water for the
rituals.”

She looked after the departing girl with a
secret, knowing smile.

* * * * *

Reid thought he must be dreaming, or possibly
he had gone completely insane. With growing incredulity he stumbled
through the last few feet of the smooth-walled tunnel, toward the
astonishing vista opening just ahead of him. Now there was moss
beneath his feet once more, and trees and bushes growing
everywhere, but this was not the overgrown thickness of the forest.
This looked like a garden. He knew it could not be a garden,
because he was in the middle of the mountain. He could see on every
side the sheer gold-brown of solid rock rising upwards for
thousands of feet until the rock ended and the cloudless,
purple-blue sky began.

Some cataclysmic force long ago must have
torn the center out of the mountain and allowed this open area to
form. He saw a pair of the long-tailed, red-and-yellow birds he had
noticed before in the ravine, and thought it was possible that
birds had deposited the seeds necessary to make the area look as it
did. But there was no easy explanation for what else he saw when he
moved forward.

A round pavilion, a small white structure
surrounded by columns, sat beside a quiet pool which reflected the
building in its limpid surface. The pavilion was a miniature
version of the ancient structure Expedition Leaders Tank and Narisa
had discovered on their previous visit to this planet, and which
now served as their headquarters.

Reid blinked several times, trying to clear
his sight, but the little building stayed where it was. It was an
illusion. It had to be.

Abruptly, Reid was aware of something, some
Presence, and he knew he was in a sacred place. He told himself it
was ridiculous to feel this way, with a chill running up his spine
and his hair standing on end. His training was in science and
mathematics, which ought to have made him immune to the kind of
superstitious reaction he was experiencing. Yet he knew in some
deep inner part of himself that the Presence existed. He knew when
it - whatever it was - accepted him.

Giddy with relief and exhaustion, he
staggered across the soft moss, catching at tree trunks to maintain
his balance. He nearly fell into the pool, but righted himself and
continued his erratic course along the edge of the water until he
reached the pavilion. It had three steps all around it, made of
polished white stone. The columns were stone, too, as was the domed
roof. There was a clear substance set into the center of the dome,
to let in the light. The effect of openness and the concentrated
light in this peculiar place within the mountain made the building
seem to glow against the green background.

Reid’s legs gave way. He sat on the topmost
step, leaning his back against a column, trying to think. His mind
was clearer now, with the unknown presence gone from his
consciousness. The pavilion was immaculately clean, the garden -
for that was how he thought of it, that was what it must be - was
carefully tended. Someone had to do that regularly. Someone
intelligent. Possibly someone who would help him find Alia and
Herne and help them all get back to headquarters.

But there wasn’t supposed to be intelligent
life on Dulan’s Planet. The telepaths who had once colonized it had
all been killed in a Cetan raid six hundred years ago, except for
the Dulan for whom the planet had been named and a few friends, who
had escaped to that larger white building on the lake, where they
had left a record of their history. Was it possible that others had
escaped, too, and, unknown to Dulan, built this structure?