Jaran

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

She caught Kirill looking at her over the campfire that evening, and he smiled at her, but it was a serious smile and rather sober. She smiled back and then he looked like Kirill again, and he went back to his supper, satisfied. Tess ate slowly, ignoring the Chapalii. But when she rose and walked out onto the plain, she saw a tall, thin, angular form shadowing her far to her right. She went back into camp.

"Walk with me, Yuri," she said within Kirill's hearing.

Yuri obeyed. "We're being followed," he said as soon as they were out of sight of camp.

"I know." She turned.

"I should have known," said Yuri, seeing that it was Kirill coming up behind them. "Somehow, I think I'm wanted back in camp."

Kirill greeted him cheerfully as they passed. "I brought blankets," he said to Tess. Then, reconsidering his words, he hesitated. "I mean, if you're cold… Do you want me to go away?"

"Oh, Kirill, I'm sorry. I have an awful temper."

"No, I'm sorry, Tess. I ought to have known better. It was an ill-bred thing to do. I'm no better than that loathsome Veselov woman. But then, I never have liked any of that family."

"You liked Arina Veselov well enough."

"She's a pretty enough woman. You took Petya, after all."

"Oho! You were jealous! But you encouraged me to make up to him."

"Doing what is right," said Kirill with dignity, "is not always easy."

Tess laughed and put her arms around him. It felt very good to hug him. "My sweet Kirill."

"Were you really jealous?" he asked in a low voice, as if he had no right to.

"Terribly."

"My heart," he said, and then nothing more.

In the morning, Yuri and Kirill were sent out to scout again. And again on the third morning. Bakhtiian did not so much not speak to her as ignore her with so much force that she knew the entire jahar was aware of it. How could she ever have thought he and Charles were men cut from the same cloth? Charles would never let his anger show. He would certainly never let the world know of his disapproval. That entire dinner party, soon after she had come to Jeds after their parents' death, still loomed large in her memory. She had been a reckless and troubled ten-year-old girl intent on ruining everything Charles had worked for on Rhui, that delicate balance of his off-world retinue and the Rhuian guests ignorant of his off-world origins. Charles had dealt with her all evening in a firm but pleasant manner. He had even warned Dr. Hierakis off when the doctor had rebuked her. Then, in the privacy of Tess's room, she had gotten the scolding. She could not now remember what he had said. But she remembered that he had never raised his voice. She had felt bitterly ashamed of herself. She had disappointed him. She had not lived up to his expectations. But that once, she had wished mightily that she could make him angry instead.

Well, Tess, just as well, she thought wryly, staring at Bakhtiian's profile as he rode five men over from her. The wind ruffled his dark hair. His lips were set together and he contemplated the horizon with that expression of preoccupied intensity that was habitual with him. Then he turned his head to meet her gaze and as deliberately looked away.

That afternoon, standing apart from the others as they watered their horses at a spring, she saw Niko break away from the group and walk across the grass to her. He let his hand rest on Myshla's withers as he considered Tess gravely. Tess crouched to look at herself in the smooth pond. The water reflected her face, the high cheekbones that sank into the deep hollows of her eyes. A single braid hung down over one shoulder, brown against the scarlet silk of her shirt. A pebble fell suddenly into the midst of the picture, dissolving her into ripples. She stood up.

"I'm not here to scold you, you know. But I think it's time you resolved your differences with Ilya. I will mediate, if you wish that protection."

"I have nothing to resolve with Ilya. My behavior has been unexceptionable.''

"That may be, but when you stir up coals, you must be prepared for flames."

Tess glanced toward the jahar. They were ranged out in clusters, talking easily among themselves. Bakhtiian stood alone. Even at such a distance, she knew-she could feel-that he was watching her.

"I won't make up to him," she said stubbornly.

"I said nothing of that. Look to your own heart before you judge others. And never, never again take a lover away as blatantly as you did two nights past. It is bad manners, my girl, and you know better. For once in my life, I lay no blame on Kirill." She flushed, angry and embarrassed. "Don't make it worse. I know him very well. Remember that." With a terse nod, he left her. It took her a moment to realize that his final comments referred to Bakhtiian not to Kirill.

"Damn them all," she muttered. Then, because any excess of ill humor in herself disgusted and bored her, she decided to walk it off. She led Myshla the long way around the spring. A curtain of half-bare trees screened the far end, though incompletely. Damp leaves squelched under her boots, and a heavy odor rose from each measured step. Rounding a clump of evergreen shrubs, she almost ran into Hon Garii, who was crouching at the lip of the pond.

He started up. "Go back!" he whispered urgently.

She was too surprised to ignore the order. She jerked Myshla around and returned the way she had come. A moment later, she heard voices speaking in Chapalii, inaudible if she had not been listening for it.

"Have you obtained the water sample?"

"Assuredly, Cha Ishii, it has been done as you commanded."

Then she was too far away to hear more. Go back. Meant for that moment, or meant to reiterate the warning Cha Ishii had given her at Veselov's tribe? But there was nothing for it but to go on now, and she had never been one to be minded to turn back. Full speed ahead and damn the consequences. With a sigh, she returned to the jahar.

That evening Bakhtiian addressed a trivial comment to her. She was so shocked that she answered him.

As if encouraged by her reply, he paused beside her. "What do you expect the shrine to look like?"

"I have no idea, but I'll admit to curiosity."

He smiled, as if at a private joke. "I trust it will make an impression on you that you will never forget," he said with something resembling amiability.

Instantly suspicious, she was thwarted from further questioning because he excused himself and left. In the morning, she had scarcely gotten her tent rolled up when he limped over toward her, Niko dogging his tracks.

"You'll want to leave that with Yuri." He nodded to the tent. "We'll be riding forward scout today."

"Ilya," Niko said, "are you well enough to ride scout?"

"I know what I'm doing."

This had nothing to do with his knee. "I'll go saddle Myshla," Tess said, retreating from the fray. But whatever Niko said, it evidently came to nothing, and she and Bakhtiian rode out together. Without remounts.

It was a quiet ride. How he contrived to keep his seat on Kriye with such ease she could not imagine. Around midday, the ground began to slope and fold. By early afternoon they rode into uneven hills. Their pace did not slacken, except when it was necessary to rest the horses. They were not scouting, or at least not as she had grown used to it. When they passed a gathering of plump grazers, he neither noted them nor even suggested she try to kill one for supper. Their path veered up, away along a bare ridge, down through a hollow of high grass, and up a shallow stream until it disappeared into a chasm at the base of a hill.

Bakhtiian pulled up his horse. "Ah. The shrine."

Tess stared. Nothing but grass and the stream's underground escape. Bakhtiian rode on up the slope. She kicked Myshla to follow and came up beside him where he halted at the crest of the hill. They looked out over a long, deep valley that stretched westward, the shrine of Morava at its far end.

She had not expected a palace.

Long ago some wealthy noble from a far-flung empire must have taken these lands and built a home for herself befitting her exalted rank. When the empire shrank in the course of time, as empires do, the palace had been left as the last remnant of a great civilization in the wilds of the north. It could not have been that long ago.

It shone. From this distance, she could only guess that it was built of marble. A high dome graced the center. Two towers, filigreed with windows and carvings, stood on either side of the dome. Beyond them, squat towers marked the wings. Far to the left stretched a low wall. In the very middle lay a wide expanse of white stone stairs and a broad landing bounded on the side by thin, black pillars. From this distance it looked as if time and wind and rain had left it untouched. And when the jaran, freed by horses from the limits of the eastern plains, had found it, they had thought it a marvel and made it a shrine.

Already, he had ridden halfway down the slope. She hastened to follow him. At the base of the hill he waited for her, and they rode together into a line of trees that edged the valley floor. All of it planted, she guessed, as they rode out of the trees and into an overgrown but still patterned wilderness of shrubs and hedges and a few flowering bushes, and then back into a copse of trees, and out again. They followed a path, half concealed by grass and leaves, that led them alternately from the twilight of woods through sundrenched glades and back again.

When they broke out of the woods for the last time, they reined in their horses at the base of a long, broad avenue that led in a direct line to the palace. The great building rose suddenly near. The setting sun streamed light across the pale stone surface of the avenue. It sank toward the low hills directly between the two high towers. Tess stared.

"There are few things in this land as beautiful as the shrine of Morava at sunset," said Ilya.

His voice startled her, and she looked at him. But he was gazing at her, not at the shrine, an odd, incandescent light in his eyes. He was complimenting her not the palace, but in that awkward, restrained, ponderous way that the very shyest or most conservative jaran men used when dealing with women. Rather than answer or acknowledge his gaze, she urged Myshla forward onto the avenue. He followed her.

Hooves rang muffled on the seamless white stone. Statues bounded the avenue, alien things, twisting, chaotic, but enticing to the eye nevertheless. Stone unlike any stone she knew: black as the void, some of them; others speckled like granite, encased in a glasslike shell; most were translucent. Their angles caught the sun, splintering delicate patterns of light out across the avenue.

An arch of tangled vines spanned the avenue, trailing striated leaves halfway down to the ground. She put up her hand to push through. Breaking past, she saw that the pavement of the avenue was now broken by chevrons chiseled into the stone.

" 'Like the very gods in my sight is he who sits where he can look in your eyes,' " said Ilya, " 'who listens close to you, to hear the soft voice, its sweetness murmur in love and laughter, all for him.' " Her cheeks burned with heat. His recitation did not falter. " 'But it breaks my spirit; underneath my breast all the heart is shaken. Let me only glance where you are, the voice dies, I can say nothing.' "

How could she help it? She turned her head to look at him. Only he was staring ahead at the bright disk of the sun, at the gleaming stone of the palace, so drawn in to himself that she could read nothing from his expression, nothing from his voice, except the evidence of his words.

" 'But my lips are stricken to silence, underneath my skin the tenuous flame suffuses; nothing shows in front of my eyes, my ears are muted in thunder. And the sweat breaks running upon me, fever shakes my body, paler I turn than grass.' " Here he faltered. Kriye paced on, eerily placid on the muffling stone. Still Ilya did not look at her but his face bore the perplexity of a man struck by revelation. " 'I can feel that I have been changed, I feel that-' " He broke off and dropped his gaze to stare at his hands.

They passed under a second arch, a broad curve of translucent blue stone carved with intricately figured animals. Here the chevrons melded with circles no larger than the circumference of Myshla's hooves.

"Can you sing?" he asked in a muted voice, as if the request might somehow break the spell with which the air of this valley had gripped them, a place untouched by time, weighted with the silence of eternity.

All she could think of was "Greensleeves." Afraid not to, she sang it, but she refused to look at him as she did so, all that long, slow ride until finally a third arch bridged the avenue, shimmering and silver-toned. She faltered and broke off the song. As soon as they passed under the silver arch, the palace looming huge and intricate before them, Ilya began to sing.

Her breath caught in her throat. How could he have known? When could he have learned it? He sang the song Fedya had made for her, about the dyan and the daughter of the sun. With whatever uncanny genius Fedya had possessed, he had made that song for Ilya to sing to her, never for any other purpose. How could it be otherwise? Not wanting to look at him, she had to look at him.

He was completely involved in the song, his expression totally unguarded in a way Tess had never seen before, all the veils that concealed his soul blown up as if a wind had caught them, revealing his true face for an illicit moment: his beautiful eyes, scarred by sorrow, the strong, stubborn line of his mouth and chin, above everything the intensity of the passion that drove him, pervading his entire being.

/ love him.

His eyes met hers. The song broke off mid-line as he stared, as they stared, and then, with an effort recalling himself, he haltingly picked up the thread of the song once more.

This was the pyre of immolation. She knew it now for what it was, consuming her. If she had ever thought she was lost before, well then, better she had stayed that way.

He finished the song and reined Kriye in. She halted Myshla beside him, aware of an arch like ruby vaulting the avenue before them. The last rays of the sun illuminated his face.

Words rose unbidden, a scrap of a line from an ancient saga. She opened her mouth, had to touch her tongue to her lips to remind herself how to speak. Even so, her voice came out soft and a little hoarse from emotion. " 'They say that your eyes contain fire, that your face fills with light.' "

Expression flooded his face. She had seen that look before, after battle.

"Now," he said triumphantly, "now you are mine."

"Advance, travelers. I await you." Tess stared at Ilya, frozen in shock, but already that betraying expression had vanished and he wrenched his attention away from her and stared past the ruby arch, up the height of the stairs to the landing and the great doors beyond.

Following his gaze, she got an impression of a solitary figure ridiculously small, robed in white, before her glance caught on the last four signs carved into the stone archway. She felt as though she could not breathe. Right to 'left she traced the carvings, and they read:

To the Sun's Child do all who enter here give Obeisance, for these are His halls.

The Sun's Child she knew to be the Emperor because this writing was Chapalii. These gardens, these woods, these statues, this avenue, this palace-it was impossible.

It was true.

"Ilya, we can't bring them here."

He still gazed upward. "Bring whom here?" he asked, intent on the figure above.

"The khepelli. Ilya! The writing, do you know what it says?"

That got his attention. His gaze leapt to her. "No one knows what it says."

"I can read it. I know."

He stared at her, so devoid of expression that she thought for a moment that he was confused.

Above, the figure spoke again, not impatient but firm, an old woman's strong voice. "Advance, travelers. I await you."

"We must finish the ceremony." He started Kriye forward under the arch. But his gaze searched the carvings for the instant he could see them, and when he dismounted and began to lead Kriye up the stairs, he said in an undertone, "What do they say?"

She had fallen behind, but she had no trouble catching up because Ilya was limping badly. Black pillars rose on either side of them, like spears upraised to contain those who thought to stray from right conduct. The sun slid beneath the high dome. Shadows bathed their path.

" 'To the Sun's Child do all who enter here give Obeisance,' " she translated, " 'for these are His halls.'"

"But the Sun's Child is a girl," he objected.

"According to the jaran."

"According to whom was it a boy?" She looked away from him. "What does this have to do with the khepelli?"

They came to the top of the stairs and halted. An old woman waited there. She held a clay bowl in her hands. Its interior gave off light by some agent Tess could not detect, illuminating the woman's lined face but shadowing her eyes.

"I am the guardian of the shrine." She examined each of them in turn. "You have ridden together at sunset up the sacred avenue." The quiet resonance of her voice made it seem almost threatening. "Do you know the penalty for sacrilege?"

"I know it," said Ilya.

Tess shut her eyes briefly. Opening them, she saw that the priestess's gaze was directed at her. "Ah, I know it," she answered hastily, sure some ritual was going on here that she did not understand.

"Do you know the Laws of the Avenue?" she asked Ilya.

"I know them."

"She is not your kin."

"No."

She inclined her head and looked at Tess. "Do you know the Laws of the Avenue?''

Tess hesitated. Ilya was looking at the priestess, not at her. He had a slight, satisfied smile on his face. "No," she said abruptly, suspicious, "no, I don't."

"You do not know the Laws of the Avenue?" she repeated, with a sharp glance at Bakhtiian.

"No."

"Is he your kin?"

"Yes," said Tess, on firmer ground here. "By his aunt's gifting, he is my cousin."

Ilya glanced at her and swiftly away, looking startled.

"This grows interesting," said the priestess, but she did not look amused. "By gift but not by birth?"

"No, not by birth."

"By two questions, young man," said the priestess sternly, "you have gambled with the Laws."

"Ah, but my name is known here." To Tess he sounded infuriatingly smug.

"I know very well what your name is, Ilyakoria Bakhtiian. Do not trifle with me when the stakes are so high. What is your name, child?"

"Terese Soerensen." Tess looked from one to the other, bewildered by this interchange.

"You see, Bakhtiian, her name is not known here. Thus am I forced to act rather than accede."

For a moment, silence reigned. Behind the priestess, the high walls of the palace rose up into the twilight sky. Fading reliefs embellished them, vague shapes that seemed to move in the failing light.

"No," said Ilya. "I have accepted responsibility for her under older laws than these."

"Do not correct me. Here there are no other laws but those of the Avenue. In this place, she alone accepts that responsibility." She paused. He stood utterly still, as if only now absorbing and measuring some threat. "That she does not know what this journey has brought her does not, I fear, release her from its consequences." They both looked at Tess. The priestess examined her with simple appraisal, but Ilya-Ilya looked afraid, and that dismayed her. "Consider what it is that you have done, Bakhtiian. Consider it well. Now, Terese Soerensen, you will come with me."

"No!" cried Ilya. His sudden movement up one step alarmed Tess, but the priestess did not move. The light in her hands shone full on his face. He seemed very pale.

"Do you threaten me?"

"She is not jaran," said Ilya hoarsely. "I am responsible. You can't take her."

"Do you presume to tell me what I can and cannot do? Your own aunt gifted her into your tribe. If you regret now whatever rashness led you here, it is too late. The ceremony is completed. But her name is not known here. Thus, she must be tested and then released, one way or the other.''

"Take me in her place." He made it an order not a request.

"You are presumptuous." Her voice cracked over them with all the harshness of a person used to complete rule and utter obedience. She lifted a hand. A door opened in the wall, and four white-clad men came out. Before Tess could react, the men surrounded Ilya. She put a hand on her saber. Then she realized none of them was armed with so much as a knife.

"You know the penalty for violence in this shrine," continued the priestess. Ilya stood stock-still, rooted to the stone, as if he were too stunned to react. The old woman moved her light to shine equally on all of them. Tess saw that the lines on her face were gentle and much marked about the eyes and the mouth. "Give your horse to one of the priests, child. Then come with me."

"Oh, gods," whispered Ilya, shutting his eyes. "I didn't think-" He broke off. Tess had never seen him with his emotions so uncontrolled. When he opened his eyes, his expression was clearly one of desperation.

"Clearly you did not think," responded the priestess caustically. "A man of your reputation. Have you anything whatever to say for yourself?"

He looked like a wild animal at bay, gauging its trap, as he examined the four men surrounding him, each in turn. But the cage was firm. To break out, he would have to use force, and here, in this shrine…

"The penalty is death," said Tess, without thinking. "Wait. I don't understand. Do you mean to harm him? Is this all because of the Laws of the Avenue?"

"No. No physical harm will come to you or to him because you rode together down the Avenue at sunset."

Tess handed Myshla's reins to one of the priests. "Well, then," she said, seeing that Ilya had been pushed to the edge and would in a moment do something-something very final, she feared. "I will go with you. Willingly. Freely." She looked at Ilya as she said it.

"Tess." He turned his head in one smooth movement to look at her. She stared at him, bereft of words.

"Yes," said the priestess. "The penance the gods have put upon you, Bakhtiian, will be far harsher than any punishment I could devise." Up beyond, a single faint light winked into life in one of the high towers, a sentinel to whatever beings dwelt in this valley. "We must go, child."

Tess found that she was grateful to the priestess for this command. Too many things happening at one time: the ride, his face, the sudden kindling of fierce love only to face those simple, awful words, the Chapalii writing, the priestess, Laws, penance, his face…

"But we can't let the khepelli come here," she said, grasping at the one thing she did understand.

The priestess had already turned away, assured of Tess's obedience. Now she turned back, and her white robe swelled out briefly with the turn. "Khepelli? What is this, Bakhtiian? Are there others in your party?"

He turned his head slowly to look at the priestess. "My jahar, and the pilgrims we escorted from the issledova tel shore." His voice was so even that it betrayed his agony.

The priestess shrugged. "Do not worry for them, child. They will come by the usual road.''

Ilya shut his eyes and took in a deep, unsteady breath.

"This is not the usual road?" Tess gestured toward the Avenue behind them, now faded into the obscurity of dusk.

"That is a most unusual road. Come." She turned and with a marked limp made her way toward the great doors.

"Ilya," Tess began. He would not look at her. And she remembered what he had said, there at the ruby arch, with her whole heart revealed before him: Now you are mine. "You bastard," she said, and she strode away after the priestess.

On the level, Tess was a head taller, but the old woman's authority diminished the disparity in height between them. "How might I address you?" Tess asked, mindful that on this occasion formality was called for.

The priestess smiled. "For now, child, you may simply follow me. Later, if the gods say it is fit, you may ask questions." At the great doors, they halted, and she examined Tess for a moment by the light of her bowl. "You are not jaran, and yet you are. This is a strong wind that blows, your being here." She touched a gnarled hand to a panel, pressed it, and the door swung open onto a long, high hall.

A hall distinctly Chapalii in shape and decoration. Stark, abstract patterns lined the walls. They seemed to form pictures, until you looked at them directly; then their form slid away, revealing nothing. Torches lit the hall. Soot and ash shadowed the floor although a wide path lay clear down the center. There was not enough of the black grit to account for long use. How could they keep such a huge place clean without machines?

"Enter, child."

Tess glanced back to see Ilya staring after them as dusk grew at his back. The horses shifted restlessly behind him. The door shut behind them and she was within the shrine.

They walked down the hall in silence. Nothing disturbed their progress. No doors shut, no feet sounded but their own, no voices pierced the heavy air. Yet beneath her feet, Tess felt that the stone itself was alive, a bewildering sensation after so long in the open. She walked on her toes, cautious and ready, a hand on the hilt of her saber. It took her almost the entire length of the hall to sort through her thoughts and let her old self emerge above half a year's journey with the jaran.

The answer was so simple it was laughable. The palace must still be alive: with machines. Hidden, of course. Silent. Meant, like servants, to do their work unobtrusively, successful only if they went entirely unseen. The jaran priests, having no such conception of technology, had almost certainly never noticed any machines, had probably felt this strange trembling life to be the touch of the gods on their greatest temple.

Shadows mottled the scalloped ceiling. Reliefs lined the upper walls. It was the epitome of Chapalii architecture: breathtaking, ornate, and utterly useless, built for the sole purpose of having people walk from one end to the other. To be wealthy enough to spend money on things that could only be used once was to be wealthy enough to matter in Chapalii society.

"If you push there, behind that niche," said the priestess, "the door will move." They passed through into an enormous chamber, its decorations too profuse to be distinguishable in the gloom. This chamber gave on to a second, and thence to a third.

A huge monument, this was, and after unknown years still in incredibly fine condition. But the Chapalii prized efficiency as much as wealth. The machines ought to work for centuries at full capacity. The palace would be cleaned by mobile scrubbers programmed to vanish into the walls before they could offend the fastidious Chapalii eye. Hadn't she and Dr. Hierakis once tried to catch the scrubbers at it, that time on Odys, and failed? Such a palace, heated by fluid mechanics, buffered from the elements by diamond coating or some more advanced technique, could exist for generations.

"Here," said the priestess with humor. "You have forgotten me, Terese Soerensen. We turn here. Those of us who live here live in the back rooms, which are less overwhelming."

Tess smiled slightly and followed her into a less ostentatious corridor that led to humbler spaces. Also, doubtless, to the quarters for the stewards and the ke. Apartments for the nobility would be on the second floor, but the main maintenance room would be down here-that was what she had to find.

And she knew that it was worth it, this entire journey. Everything else aside, all the other joys and sorrows, everything she had learned and lost and become, this knowledge would be of priceless value to Charles. If spy she must be, spy she would become. She would leave here knowing why this palace existed and what the Chapalii were trying to hide.

"If you will wait here." Tess sat obediently on a bench in a narrow hallway while the priestess disappeared inside a room. Two torches gave a glum light to the corridor, and she could see into several rooms, scarcely more than closets, that showed signs of habitation: A couch with an old stain on the cushions, a table with a cloth on it, a sandal forgotten in a corner.

The priestess returned and led Tess down a white-walled hallway into a bright room. Twelve white-robed men and women regarded her, unsmiling. Tess blinked, rubbing at her eyes. She could not make out the source of the light. Walls of luminous stone lined the chamber, and it was bare of furnishing or ornamentation except for a cylindrical fountain at the far end, about twelve meters from her. While the priests studied her, she studied the fountain. It was a clear, hollow structure, intricately carved to reveal six spouts curled within, releasing a fine spray of rainbows and water that trickled into a basin and thence into a drain in the floor.

"You have ridden down the Avenue at sunset, knowing but not knowing what the Laws are, with a man who is but is not your kin," said the priestess. "Because your name is not known here, at this shrine where the gods' breath still lies heavy over the earth, the gods must judge you. Drink from the fountain, child. Drink your fill."

Tess looked around the circle of faces. They were all serious, dispassionate, yet none was unsympathetic. This was a test, but she could not connect it with what she knew of this culture or with Ilya's distress. She walked up to the fountain and knelt, cupping her hands to get a handful of water from the basin, and sipped at it, a bare touch. Lowered her hands slightly to watch the priests. Lifted her hands. Before her lips touched the water again, her mouth stung.

She swore and jumped up. The water in her hands spilled onto the stone. She rubbed her hands roughly on her trousers.

"It burns!" She sat down, screwing up her face, trying to rub the stinging off of her lips. But if this was the gods' drink, she had surely failed to meet with their approval. And the penalty for sacrilege-she stood up. They would not kill her without a fight.

But they were all smiling. And none of them was armed.

"You have a certain enthusiasm for the truth which is refreshing." The priestess walked forward. "May I show you to a room for the night now?"

Tess did not move. "That was all? That was the test? I'm safe?"

"My child," said the priestess, a little scoldingly, perhaps, "no violence is ever done in this shrine."

"But the drink?"

"The water is poisonous. A sip does no harm, but were you dishonest or frightened, or greedy enough, you would have drunk your fill."

"And died."

The priestess shrugged.

"Does everyone who enters here whose name is-not known-have to pass this test?" she asked, suddenly curious about the Chapalii.

"No, only those who have transgressed the Law in some fashion."

"But how did I-?"

"First, child, you may call me Mother Avdotya. Second, you may come with me to your room. There is much to do if pilgrims are expected, and no time for all of us to stay with you."

Tess submitted. The hallway seemed very dark after the bright intensity of the fountain chamber. The priestess led her with her bowl of light down another hall, up stairs, and along a narrower corridor until they reached a room furnished with a single bed, a table, a chair, and a small window. And Myshla's saddlebags.

"You may sleep here. Yeliana will come for you in the morning."

Tess sat on the bed, hands folded in her lap. "May I ask some questions, Mother Avdotya?"

"Yes. You have earned that right."

Tess sighed and decided to begin where the ground seemed safest. "How long has this shrine been here?"

"I do not know."

"Who built it?"

"I do not know."

"How does it stay so-clean? Are there many of you here?"

"Never more than twenty-seven. It remains pure by its own devices."

"How does it stay light?"

"We have torches. The other lights come, perhaps, from the stone. I do not know."

"Does anyone know?"

She chuckled. ' 'Do you think I am the old half-wit they have sent to you to keep you ignorant?" Tess blushed. Out the window she saw only dark and stars and the skeletal outlines of trees. "No, child. I am Eldest here. That is why I went out to the Avenue, when it was seen that a sunset ride had begun."

Tess could not yet bring herself to speak of the Avenue. "What will Bakhtiian do tonight?"

"He will remain outside. I hope it proves a cold night. I know from experience that stone is hard ground on which to kneel for so many hours, especially when the penitent does not know whether he has brought about another person's death.'' Tess winced away from the merciless chill in the old woman's voice. "Now I will leave you. You have a great deal to think about."

Tess took in a breath and stood up. "You said that we rode together down the Avenue at sunset as if that meant something. That-the ceremony was completed. What is the Law of the Avenue?"

Mother Avdotya turned back calmly, as if she had expected this question all along and merely hastened its appearance by pretending to leave. She rested her right hand on the back of the chair. Her left still cupped the bowl of light. "The honored ceremony. It takes great presumption-that, certainly, Ilyakoria Bakhtiian does not lack-because this is a holy place. For a man and a woman to ride down the Avenue at sunset, if they are not kin, is to marry their souls in the sight of the gods."

Tess sat down. "But-but we're cousins."

"Cousins have been known to marry, although it is rare, and more rarely approved."

"But I thought a man married a woman by marking her with his saber and then there was a period of prohibitions laid on them, and if they passed through these without breaking any, they were married."

"Yes," Mother Avdotya agreed, "that is the way of the jaran, the way of the people. The Law of the Avenue is unique. I have served here forty years, and only once before, twenty-six years ago, did a man and a woman ride the avenue."

"What happened to them?"

"It was she who had instigated it, for no better reason than envy of another woman's husband. She was too afraid to be honest when it came time to approach the fountain. He lives here still as a priest, having dedicated himself to serve where she died."

"Oh," said Tess, amazed she could produce so profound an observation. "He didn't think I would be tested, did he?"

"That seems to be the only word to his credit in this entire business that I can find," replied Mother Avdotya, quite unsympathetically.

"After all," Tess muttered to herself, "he would have no victory if I were dead." Then, seeing that the priestess was watching her with unnerving keenness, she shook her head, trying to clear it of confusion. "Why is it that so few of the jaran marry this way? Because they might be killed?"

"I'm not sure you entirely understand. The mark weds a woman to a man as long as her flesh carries it, or he lives. And only that long. But those who marry by this road marry the other eternally, for as long as their souls are born back into this world."

"Do you mean he did it believing it would bind me to him forever?''

"You see, child, why it is such an unpardonable thing he has done, knowing as he did that you were ignorant of it."

"Oh, my God."

The light on the priestess' bowl cast a glow on her face, shadowing ridges, highlighting the white sheen of her hair. Tess pinched the coarse blanket up into little hummocks and smoothed it down again. What had Kirill said? Bakhtiian did not like to lose.

"Yuri tried to warn me that I was riding into an ambush."

"An unusual ambush."

"I didn't even know we were fighting a war." Suddenly exhausted, Tess sank her head to rest on her open hands. "Oh, God." She could see his face, that brilliant, passionate face. She felt overwhelmed and utterly bewildered. There burned like a safe beacon her love for Kirill, like a campfire or a hearth's fire, warm and welcoming and contained, no great blaze, but restful and heartwarming. Like her love for Yuri, whatever differences there might be in how she felt for each of them. But like a wildfire that rages over the grass, obliterating everything in its path, this had come to her.

"I will leave you now," said Mother Avdotya.

The old woman went so unobtrusively that Tess scarcely noticed her leaving: the scrape of a shoe, cloth brushing wood, the low snick of the closing door. It was very dim, the furniture only dark slabs. Tess raised her head and stared outside at the lines of trees moving in the wind, etched against the night sky and the dark mass of clouds gathering, hiding the stars. Oh, yes, she understood him very well now. Perhaps Yuri was right, perhaps there was no difference for him between love and conquest.

Now you are mine.

He had what he wanted. "A wife has certain obligations to her husband that he may demand if she is unwilling to give them to him freely." She had no doubt now what those obligations included. That she loved him-that he now knew that she loved him-well, that only added sweetness to the victory.

Outside, the moon emerged from a scattering of clouds. Tess rose and went to the window, staring out. This is not my world, she told herself. If he has married himself to you under his laws, then what of it? It does not bind you.

Only it was her world, in a sense. She was its heir. And the ties of love and hate, of desire and indifference, of loyalty and betrayal are the only and all of the ties that bind us. She paced the tiny room for half the night before she finally got herself to sleep.