The Temple of Light, set upon the shores of the Ancient Land, was near the sea; it was set high above the City of the Circling Snake, which ringed it like a crescent moon. The Temple, lying between the spread horns of the crescent, at the focus of certain natural forces which the walls were built to intercept and conduct, was like a woman in the encircling glow of a lover's arm.
It was afternoon; summer and sun lay like smooth butter on the city, and like topaz on the gilded sea, with the dream of a breeze and the faint, salt-sweet rankness of tidewaters.
Three tall ships lay lifting to the swell of sails and sea, in the harbor. A few yards from the wharves, merchants had already set up their stalls and were crying their wares. The coming of the ships was an event alike to city-folk and farmer, peasant and aristocrat. In the crowded streets, Priests in luminous robes rubbed elbows uncaring with stolid traders and ragged mendicants; and a push or chance blow from some unwary lout, that would have meant a flogging on another day, now cost the careless one only a sharp look; tatterdemalion boys ran in and out of the crowd without picking the scrip of a single fat merchant.
One little group, however, met with no jostling, no familiarities: awed smiles followed Micon as he moved through the streets, one hand resting lightly on Deoris's arm. His luminous robes, fashioned of a peculiarly stainless white, cut and girdled in an unusual style, marked him no ordinary Priest come to bless their children or energize their farmlands; and, of course, the daughters of the powerful Talkannon were known to all. Many a young girl in the crowd smiled as Arvath passed; but the young Priest's dark eyes were jealously intent on Domaris. He resented Micon's effect on his betrothed. Arvath had almost forced himself on them, today.
They paused atop a sandy ridge of dunes, looking out over the sea. "Oh!" Deoris cried out in childish delight, "the ships!"
From habit, Micon turned to her. "What ships are they? Tell me, little sister," he asked, with affectionate interest. Vividly and eagerly, Deoris described to him the tall ships: high and swaying above the waves, their serpent banners brilliantly crimson at the prow. Micon's face was remote and dreamy as he listened.
"Ships from my homeland," he murmured wistfully. "There are no ships in all the Sea Kingdoms like the ships of Ahtarrath. My cousin flies the serpent in crimson—"
Arvath said bluntly, "I too am of the Golden Isles, Lord Micon."
"Your lineage?" queried Micon with interest. "I am homesick for a familiar name. Have you been in Ahtarrath?"
"I spent much of my youth beneath the Star-mountain," the younger man said. "Mani-toret, my father, was Priest of the Outer Gates in the New Temple; and I am son by adoption to Rathor in Ahtarrath."
Micon's face lighted, and he stretched his gaunt hands joyfully to the young man. "You are my brother indeed, then, young Arvath! For Rathor was my first teacher in the Priesthood, and guided me first to Initiation!"
Arvath's eyes widened. "But—are you that Micon?" he breathed. "All my life have I been told of your—"
Micon frowned. "Let be," he warned. "Speak not of that."
In uneasy awe, the young man said, "You do read minds!"
"That took not much reading, younger brother," Micon said wryly. "Do you know these ships?"
Arvath looked at him steadily. "I know them. And if you wish to conceal yourself, you should not have come here. You have changed, indeed, for I did not recognize you; but there are those who might."
Mystified and intrigued, the two girls had drawn together, alternately gazing at the two men and exchanging glances with one another.
"You do not—" Micon paused. "Recognize me? Had we met?"
Arvath laughed ringingly. "I would not expect you to know me again! Listen, Domaris, Deoris, and I will tell you about this Micon! When I was a little boy, not seven years old, I was sent to the home of Rathor, the old hermit of the Star-mountain. He is such a man as the ancients call saint; his wisdom is so famed that even here they do reverence to his name. But at that time, I knew only that many sober and serious young men came to him to study; and many of them brought me sweets and toys and petted me. While Rathor taught them, I played about on the hills with a pet cat. One day, I fell on a slide of rocks, and rolled down, and twisted my arm under me—"
Micon smiled, exclaiming, "Are you that child? Now I remember!"
Arvath continued, in a reminiscent tone, "I fainted with the pain, Domaris, and knew no more until I opened my eyes to see a young Priest standing beside me, one of those who came to Rathor. He lifted me up and set me on his knee, and wiped the blood from my face. There seemed to be healing in his hands—"
With a spasmodic movement, Micon turned away. "Enough of this," he said, stifled.
"Nay, I shall tell, elder brother! When he cleaned away the blood and dirt, I felt no pain, even though the bones had pierced through the flesh. He said, 'I have not the skill to tend this myself,' and he carried me in his arms to Rathor's house, because I was too bruised to walk. And then, because I was afraid of the Healer Priest who came to set the broken bone, he held me on his knees while the bone was set and bandaged; and all that night, because I was feverish and could not sleep, he sat by me, and fed me bread and milk and honey, and sang and told me stories until I forgot the pain. Is that so terrible a tale?" he asked softly. "Are you afraid these maidens might think you womanish, to be kind to a sick child?"
"Enough, I say," Micon pleaded again.
Arvath turned to him with a disbelieving stare; but what he saw in the dark blind face made his own expression alter into a gentler pattern. "So be it," he said, "but I have not forgotten, my brother, and I shall not forget." He pulled back the sleeve of his Priestly robe, showing Domaris a long livid streak against the tanned flesh. "See, here the bone pierced the flesh—"
"And the young Priest was Micon?" Deoris asked.
"Yes. And he brought me sweets and playthings while I was abed; but since that summer I had not seen him again."
"How strange, that you should meet so far from home!"
"Not so strange, little sister," said Micon, in his rich and gentle voice. "Our fates spin their web, and our actions bear the fruits they have sown. Those who have met and loved cannot be parted; if they meet not in this life, they meet in another."
Deoris accepted the words without comment, but Arvath asked aggressively, "Do you believe, then, that you and I are bound to one another in such manner?"
The trace of a wry smile touched Micon's lips. "Who can tell? Perhaps, when I picked you up from the rocks that day, I merely redeemed an old service done me by you before these hills were raised." He gestured, with a look of amusement, toward the Temple behind them. "I am no seer. Ask of your own wisdom, my brother. Perhaps the service remains to be met. The Gods grant we both meet it like men."
"Amen to that," Arvath said soberly. Then, because he had been deeply moved, his quick emotions swung in another direction. "Domaris came to the city to make some purchases; shall we return to the bazaar?"
Domaris came alive out of deep preoccupation. "Men have no love for bright cloth and ribbons," she said gaily. "Why do you not remain here upon the docks?"
"I dare not let you from my sight in the city, Domaris," Arvath informed her, and Domaris, piqued, flung her proud head high.
"Think not that you can direct my steps! If you come with me—you follow!" She took the hand of Deoris, and the two walked ahead, turning toward the marketplace.
The sleepy bazaar, wakened into life by the ships from the Sea Kingdoms, hummed with the bustle of much buying and selling. A woman was selling singing birds in cages of woven rushes; Deoris stopped, enchanted, to look and listen, and with an indulgent laugh Domaris directed that one should be sent to the House of the Twelve. They walked slowly on, Deoris bubbling over with delight.
A drowsy old man watched sacks of grain and glistening clay jugs of oil; a naked urchin sat cross-legged between casks of wine, ready to wake his master if a buyer came. Domaris paused again at a somewhat larger stall, where lengths of brilliantly patterned cloth were displayed; Micon and Arvath, following slowly, listened for a moment to the absorbed girlish voices, then grinned spontaneously at one another and strolled on together past the flower-sellers, past the old country-woman. Chickens squawked in coops, vying with the cries of the vendors of dried fish and fresh fish, or plump fruits from cakes and sweetmeats and cheap sour beer, the stalls of bright rugs and shining ornaments, and the more modest stalls of pottery and kettles.
A little withered Islandman was selling perfumes under a striped tent, and as Micon and Arvath passed, his shrivelled face contracted with keen interest. He sat upright, dipping a miniature brush into a flask and waving it in air already honey-sweet with mingled fragrances. "Perfumes from Kei-lin, Lords," he cried out in a rumbling, wheezy bass, "spices of the West! Finest of flowers, sweetest of spice-trees. . . ."
Micon halted; then, with his usual deliberate step, went carefully toward the striped tent. The scent-seller, recognizing Temple nobility, was awed and voluble. "Fine perfumes and essences, Lords, sweet spices and unguents from Kei-lin, scents and oils for the bath, all the fine fragrances of the wide world for your sweetheart—" The garrulous little man stopped and amended quickly, "For your wife or sister, Lord Priest—"
Micon's twisted grin came reassuringly. "Neither wife nor sweetheart have I, Old One," he commented dryly, "nor will I trouble you for unguents or lotions. Yet you may serve us. There is a perfume made in Ahtarrath and only there, from the crimson lily that flowers beneath the Star-mountain."
The scent-seller looked curiously at the Initiate before he reached back into his tent and searched for a long time, fumbling about like a mouse in a heap of straw. "Not many ask for it," he muttered in apology; but, finally, he found what was wanted, and wasted no time in extolling its virtues, but merely waved a scented droplet in the air.
Domaris and Deoris, rejoining them, paused to breathe in the spicy fragrance, and Domaris's eyes widened.
"Exquisite!"
The fragrance lingered hauntingly in the air as Micon laid down some coins and picked up the small flask, examining it closely with his hands, drawing his attenuated fingers delicately across the filigree carving. "The fretwork of Ahtarrath—I can identify it even now." He smiled at Arvath. "Nowhere else is such work done, such patterns formed . . ." Still smiling, he handed the phial to the girls, who bent to exclaim over the dainty carven traceries.
"What scent is this?" Domaris asked, lifting the flask to her face.
"An Ahtarrath flower, a common weed," said Arvath sharply.
Micon's face seemed to share a secret with Domaris, and he asked, "You think it lovely, as I do?"
"Exquisite," Domaris repeated dreamily. "But strange. Very strange and lovely."
"It is a flower of Ahtarrath, yes," Micon murmured, "a crimson lily which flowers beneath the Star-mountain; a wild flower which workmen root up because it is everywhere. The air is heavy with its scent. But I think it lovelier than any flower that grows in a tended garden, and more beautiful. Crimson—a crimson so brilliant it hurts to look on it when the sun is shining, a joyous, riotous color—a flower of the sun." His voice sounded suddenly tired, and he reached for Domaris's hand and put the flask into it with finality, gently closing the fingers around it with his own. "No, it is for you, Domaris," he said with a little smile. "You too are crowned with sunlight."
The words were casual, but Domaris swallowed back unbidden tears. She tried to speak her thanks, but her hands were trembling and no words came. Micon did not seem to expect them, for he said, in a low voice meant for her ears alone, "Light-crowned, I wish I might see your face . . . flower of brightness. . . ."
Arvath stood squarely, frowning ferociously, and it was he who broke the silence with a truculent, "Shall we go on? We'll be caught by night here!" But Deoris went swiftly to the young man and clasped his arm in a proprietary grip, leaving Domaris to walk ahead with Micon—a privilege which Deoris usually claimed jealously for herself.
"I will fill her arms with those lilies, one day," Arvath muttered, staring ahead at the tall girl who walked at Micon's side, her flaming hair seeming to swim in sunlight. But when Deoris asked what he had said, he would not repeat it.