Desert Rising (12 page)

Sulis and Alannah stared awkwardly at each other as Elida stepped to the hall and found an acolyte to take her message. She returned and beckoned Sulis and Alannah to the altar.

“The
feli
will keep others out while we talk,” the Counselor said. Sulis glanced around and saw that two
feli
were blocking each exit, sitting tall in sentry position.

“You are troubled, Sulis,” Elida continued. “I know something has disturbed your mind. The One led me to this lesson today, for you. But it seems there is something at work stronger than what you can fight by yourself.”

Sulis was torn, wanting to confide in the Counselor but not sure where to start. It was the Voice of Voras who had done this. Would Elida be sympathetic if she knew? Or would she send her and Alannah straight to the Templar, to Voras, who wanted control over her mind and body? She didn't know where the woman's loyalties lay.

And she doubted her own feelings, Sulis realized. She'd never felt such overwhelming helplessness, but it was mixed with the fear that maybe this was her fault somehow. Maybe it really was her own attraction to the Templar that caused this. Maybe Elida would send her away, ashamed of this pledge's lack of control and wanton ways. She'd never been ashamed of her sexuality in the desert, but the Northern Territory had different standards about what was decent for a woman.

Sulis stared down at her sandals, trapped by her own uncertainties.

“You have to tell her, Sulis,” Alannah said. “Whatever he did, she'll know what to do.”

Sulis looked up at the other girl, whose face held as much fear as her own did. It must be shaking Alannah greatly to see that the mouthpiece of one of the deities could act wrongly. Alannah was deep in her faith.

“You can trust me, Sulis—­at least in matters of the One,” Elida said. “Although I was once of Aryn, my faith in the One took me higher than the deities. I can see the touch of one of them upon you, far sooner than a deity has a right to be grasping. We have rules about pledging, and I must know when one of the deities attempts to break those, and which one it is.”

Sulis hesitated a moment, but Alannah's pleading eyes made up her mind. “The Templar of Voras,” she whispered, worried that he would hear her and come. “I was in his office yesterday. I can't stop thinking about him.”

The Counselor narrowed her eyes. “Tell me everything, from the moment you entered the room,” she ordered Sulis.

Sulis began, with many interruptions from the Counselor, asking her for more details than Sulis even realized she remembered. Sulis blushed while telling of her arousal and couldn't meet either woman's eyes.

“You are experienced in such matters?” Elida asked her. “You have lain with a man before?”

Sulis nodded, but then felt she had to justify herself. “Sexuality is something given to us by the One—­something to rejoice in, not fear. And it is certainly not something to be used as a weapon.”

“I'm not criticizing you,” Elida responded. “Had you been a virgin, unaccustomed to such feelings, they might have overwhelmed you, and you would not have broken free. That is the way it has happened with other pledges.”

When Alannah and Sulis stared at her, she nodded. “Oh, yes, this has happened before—­usually to the most promising, powerful young women who seemed destined to be paired with Aryn or Parasu. Ivanha has dominion over childbirth, so she will take any pledge that comes to her pregnant. I don't doubt that the Templar has been the father of many of these children. It is a good partnership for the two deities, ensuring that they get the most powerful of the new women under their control.”

“But why? Why would they do that?” Alannah asked, her face white. “And why does the One allow it?”

“The One allows choices, even for the deities. The One will not interfere unless there is a threat to the whole of life—­not just one person. However, she does direct us, her most faithful servants, to watch out for those with promise. Many times we are too late to do more than comfort, but in some cases, we can help.”

“Is that what he has planned for me as well?” Alannah asked.

Elida put a hand on her shoulder. “I'm not certain what his meeting with you was about, Alannah. It might have been harmless.”

Alannah shook her head. “Are the deities evil, then? How can I serve creatures that would harm others this way?”

“The deities aren't evil, Alannah. They tend to be so focused on their domains that they don't think of what we want. To Voras, everything is a war—­he acts offensively, picking out warriors and ruthlessly going for what he thinks will win a battle. He sees Ivanha as his ally because they tend to agree on what is traditional and needs to stay the same, and he pleases her with gifts of the brightest, strongest women.”

“Why don't Aryn and Parasu put a stop to it?” Alannah asked.

“How can they? They believe in neutrality,” Elida countered.

Sulis shifted uneasily. “What happens to them—­the girls Voras forces into Ivanha's ser­vice?” she asked.

“They have many children, preside at many marriages, and do much of what they would have done if they'd never been paired. The lives of women in Illian, paired or not, tend to be restricted to Ivanha's domain. And often, after a time, the One will reclaim them as her own.” Elida smiled. “But that will not happen to you—­nor you, Alannah. Since the Templar has shown interest in you also, you will help me rid Sulis of this compulsion. Then you will not fall into a similar trap.”

Elida had Sulis sit cross-­legged on the stones beside the altar, as she had for meditation. Djinn plunked himself beside her with his head in her lap, and she tried to shoo him away.

“No, don't. He will help focus you,” Elida told her. She turned to Alannah. “Call your
feli
in,” she told her.

Alannah looked startled and opened her mouth.

“No, not that way,” Elida said impatiently. “Need her. Think of her. You pledges don't bond enough with your
feli
. Yaslin should have been here already, drawn by your anger.”

A white
feli
stalked between the two guarding the door. She had a thicker face and body than Djinn's, with startling blue eyes outlined in black with white eyelashes. She sat beside Alannah, just out of arm's reach, her tail tucked around her neat white paws. The Counselor's gray
feli
sprawled at her feet.

“Scoot closer to her . . . yes, touching. Now put your hand on my shoulder.” Elida reached out her own hand, touching Sulis on the cheek the way the Templar had.

“Now close your eyes and clear your mind. Alannah, in the clarity of your mind I am a spark—­do you see me? Follow the spark.”

Sulis was too nervous to clear her mind, but she tried, pushing away her doubts. Something nudged her consciousness, pushing her, guiding her until she found the space she had been in earlier. The taint was still there, but this time Sulis studied it instead of reaching for it. As she studied it, she saw the spark that must be the Counselor drifting past her. She felt the presence of another—­a sweet purity that must be Alannah. She cautiously followed the spark, not wanting to throw herself out of the trance as she had earlier.

“Good,” Elida said softly, from a distance. “I will light up the trace, back to the Templar. When you see it, push on the
geas
. Think of who you are, and it should repel his unnatural taint.”

With Elida guiding, Sulis saw that there was a path, nearly invisible, that led away to a glowing source in a distant mind. With that realization, she looked at Elida's spark and saw there, too, a path that reached back to her body.

Sulis focused on who she was, what she felt. She felt the
geas
begin to shift away from her. Then it resisted, and Sulis felt a presence that was trying to grasp her probing thoughts, take her over, and drag her out of the One's chamber. She fought the urge to climb to her feet, panic rising in her throat. Elida had a hand on her shoulder, holding her down, keeping her braced. But Elida couldn't seem to push back the intruder in Sulis's brain.

“Remember who you are, Sulis,” she heard Elida say. “Use your emotions and memories to clear your mind.”

So she thought of her most powerful moment: the last time she had seen her mother alive. She saw her mother's earnest face, telling Sulis she needed to take care of Kadar and her father. She pushed forward with the pain she felt over her mother's loss, and above all, the love she felt, and the
geas
moved, flying out and down the connection between Sulis and the Templar. When it returned to the Templar, there was a flare of white light, and the
geas
disappeared.

“Ooph,” Elida grunted, and Sulis opened her eyes, realizing she'd also shoved the Counselor and Alannah out. The Counselor still sat straight in her pose, but Alannah had fallen over onto her
feli
and was trying to sit back up.

“Sorry. Are you okay?” Sulis asked anxiously.

Elida opened her eyes. “We're fine,” she said with a pleased smile. She and her
feli
both looked like they'd lapped a bowl of cream. “You have a very strong will. You should not have been able to push a Counselor out of your mind.”

Alannah was sitting back upright, shaking her head. “I thought it was going to take her over,” she said breathlessly. “It was so strong.”

Elida nodded. “Most of the time, you won't be fighting someone so powerful,” she told them. “But it was best if Sulis fought off the compulsion herself, both to strengthen her mind and to keep the Templar from realizing that the One interfered.”

“But don't you want to use this as a lesson?” Alannah asked. “Tell the deities what they are doing is wrong!”

Elida shook her head. “If the Templar believes Sulis broke the
geas
on her own, he will be more cautious and less likely to want her as an enemy. If he believes the One interfered, he will keep trying, believing her to be both weak and important to the One.”

Alannah frowned, obviously unhappy that the deity would go unpunished. “Can we tell others about this?” she asked.

“Of course, but tell of the One's role to only the ­people you most trust. And I would like the two of you to practice on each other. You've seen what a
geas
looks like. Attempt to form one on each other to practice repelling them, and to create a wholeness of your mind that will be a barrier to anyone trying to control you,” Elida instructed them. “The two of you have formidable potential. It frightens me, knowing the One has called up two such strong individuals amid a pledge class that is already very strong. It means that there are troubled times in our future, and you must prepare yourselves.”

Then she smiled, as though trying to soften her foreboding words. “But, of course, you won't want the barrier to be too strong. There will be a time when you will surrender your soul to your deity and need to be able to let him or her in.”

She looked up to the door, where several Vrishni were waiting patiently behind the
feli
guards. “It looks to be a busy day. If you have need, please come see me again. The Temple of the One is always open to you if you need peace and a quiet place to meditate.”

The girls bowed and left, their
feli
following behind.

“Are you hungry?” Sulis asked Alannah, somewhat wary of the girl after such intimacy. “We should be able to just make breakfast.”

“Why don't we go to the hall between Parasu and Aryn,” Alannah said, to Sulis's gratitude. The last thing she wanted right now was to see the red robes of Voras's acolytes. A glance at Alannah's set face told her the other girl felt the same way.

The dining hall was nearly empty, and there weren't many choices left, but they were able to get bowls of porridge and sit down at an empty table away from any others. Sulis took a bite as Alannah cleared her throat nervously.

“I saw your mother once,” she said. “I was just little, but she had the same black hair as you, and her
feli
was spotted and smaller than Djinn. She looked so proud that I admired her even though my parents whispered that she was a traitor.”

Sulis had a hard time swallowing. Alannah had seen the memory Sulis used to push the Templar away. She tried to think of a way to deny the memory but couldn't.

“My mother was never a traitor,” she said.

Alannah shook her head. “I'm beginning to realize that. I'm beginning to understand why she would flee the Temple,” she said, and Sulis realized the other girl was as shaken by today as she was.

Alannah continued. “I was horrified when Lasha told me what you were doing, bonding with the
feli
, trying to be taken by the deity of your own choice. I felt it was wrong to try to change destiny, to believe yourself the equal of a deity. But what the Voice of Voras did to your mind was evil, no matter what Counselor Elida says. And if Ivanha did not interfere and has not stopped him from this sacrilege, then she, too, must have great evil in her. This is not what I was ever taught.”

Sulis took a ­couple of bites of her porridge, thinking of her mother and the Temple. She drew in her breath sharply as she realized she might have revealed herself, throwing that image of her mother at the Templar.

“If you saw my mother, so did the Templar. I threw the memory at him. He knows who I am,” she said, her face turning pale.

Alannah put her hand over Sulis's. “Not necessarily,” she said reassuringly. “This Templar has been around only a few years. I would not have been able to catch your mother's face, as quickly as it flashed by me, if she had not made such an impression on me when I was little.”

“But Counselor Elida probably knows.”

“I am certain the Counselor knew from the moment you were paired,” Alannah said. “The One certainly would have known you and told her. Since she has not told already, she will not tell now.”